Dart’s very short letter begins with, “Still here. Seems like a long time to be staying in one place. Especially since my favorite columnist, Ernie Pyle says destroyers ‘prance’ and ‘cavort.’ Some fun.”

He received three letters at mail call today – all of them over a month old, and none of them from Dot. He’s still corresponding with his pal Fred, a teacher from Shaw High School and a nurse of his from Great Lakes.

Today was hot, lazy and uneventful. The movie didn’t hold his attention, so he left it. He much preferred last night’s screening of “A Song to Remember,” the supposed story of Chopin’s life. The music in it made him homesick to hear his cousin Margaret playing the piano.

Nothing else to write tonight, except how much he loves Dot, but he doesn’t fell like writing that. He feels like telling her, and she’s much too far away for that.

Dot’s letter is also short, although twice as long as Dart’s. She had one subject on her mind, namely her 9:00 AM interview with the WAVE recruitment office. “What they tell me tomorrow morning will either make me the happiest or the most disappointed girl in the world.”

She dreams of working in a rehabilitation hospital, perhaps teaching boys to walk again. She wants to do something important. “This idea of being just a number in a store, selling a lot of worthless junk to people who don’t seem to care how they spend their money is beginning to get me down.”

He won’t get this letter in time to wish her luck for the interview, but she hopes he’ll send her his best wishes for enlisting in June when she turns 19. “You saw the WAVES and what they were doing when you were in the hospital at Great Lakes. Didn’t you think they were doing a fine job?”

It’s almost as though she knows he won’t like the idea, and she pleads with him to support her wish to become a WAVE. If she does, she’ll work very hard at making him proud of her.

She vows that the long letter she promised is forthcoming, and she sends him all her love.