"A-1 FOR MY TRIP HOME"

From a letter written by 1Lt Norman E. Duquette on 21 January 1952

21 Jan 52 [Monday]

     The beginning of another week and practically the finish of another month.  I have 83 missions now.  I haven't been flying for the past four days as I've had a cold and sore throat.  I feel much better now as I went to the dispensary and got 300,000 units of penicillin and some orio[?] mycin pills.  I quit smoking about a week ago.  I guess the shock was too much for my system so it revolted and broke down with a cold.  The weather has been stinkin again.  Cold as heck one day then warm & wet the next.  Two hours ago it was like spring outside.  Since then it has rained, hailed and is now snowing flakes as big as half dollars.

     Hi --

     Back again.  It's late in the evening.  I've been working down in Personal Equipment until just a few minutes ago.   I had a lot of inspections on parachutes and flying equipment to make.  I'm pretty well caught up on all of them now so can relax on that score for a while.

     It finally ended up snowing soft pellets about the size of marbles this evening.  Certainly a variety of weather.

     I went down to the orphanage in Seoul yesterday and brought them a whole truck load of scrap lumber.  The people in charge were very pleased to get it.  They took us in to the large one room school and had the children sing & dance for us.  I enjoyed it very much.  They had a choir of children ranging in age from four to nine years old.  There were about twenty in the group and they sang "Twinkle Little Star" and "Roll Your Boat" in American plus a bunch of Korean songs.  It really tugs at your heart to hear them.   They sing so very loud and lustily and they're wasn't but one or two that didn't have a running nose and just a pair of stockings on their feet.  They all seem so very brave and unconcerned with their pathetic selves.  There were a couple that I thought I'd like to adopt.  Really cute little twirps.  I was thinking, all the while they were singing, about how much I could do for them if I had them in America.   Poor tikes.

     They have a long one story building for sleeping quarters.  There is a top & sides to the building and it has windows and doors but no floor but hard earth.  Their beds consist of a hole in the ground large enough for two twirps to crawl into and snuggle up.  There's a stove in the room but they haven't any fuel for it.  There are upwards of 400 children there.

     One child about five had just come to the orphanage yesterday.  Her father was killed last spring in one of the exchanges that Seoul made between friendly and enemy hands.  Her mother had died the day before.  The child cried consistently and walked around with her hands in a pair of trousers made of a G.I. blanket.  She would walk all through the orphanage and open all the of the doors and peer in and ask for her mother.  Each time she would turn away with renewed sobs and tears.  She was just a tike.  About the size of a normal two year old.

     I wanted to get some pictures but I brought my camera in with me and left it in the glove compartment of the truck.  When I came out to use it, it was gone.  That and two bottles of my combat whiskey that I had brought into town to do some bartering for some material we need for the club.

     The "Cottonpickers" Club is just about completed again.  We should be able to open up again in about five days [26 Jan 52].  We've done some very professional carpentry on this club.   We've built a fine bar, benches, tables and even have windows with glass in them.   Glass is worth its weight in silver here.  It cost us six bottles of whiskey for a dozen pieces of 24" x 36" glass.  Whiskey sells for about $25.00 a fifth over here.  Pilots get a combat ration free of charge.   It amounts to about a fifth a month.

     I've been rambling on here for an hour.   It's getting late again so best I should go to bed.   I'm physically intact once again so I want to keep that way so's I'll be A-1 for my trip home in the near future.

     Goodnight once again sweethearts.   I love and miss you.

Duke

     P.S.  Please send me Al's address as I would like to drop him a line.