1944 July

dated July 26, 1944

Dear Cousins,

Will try and drop you a few lines this evening to let  you know I am getting along fine.

I have a testament thank you very much for offering to get me one but I have one which I brought overseas with me .

        I visited Rome and saw quite a few things while there . I saw the Vatican City and the ruins of the old coliseum.

Rome sure is a clean city compared to the rest of the Italian cities.  

I have also visited Naples and some other towns since I have been in Italy.

Well will close for is time as news is scarce.

Your cousin,

Ernest

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Somewhere in India

Dear Geneva 

I’m sorry to have been lax in writing you and thanking you for the kind letter you wrote for me.  I really appreciated it and it was used in good stead.

India —-I am happy to say is not the country Columbus thought he had come to when he reached North America.  We’d all be very disappointed if we were living here in this country.

This country is different thats for sure —- ways of living, religion, etc.

What would you think if you went into Sioux Falls to-day and saw houses, hovel would be a better name for them, where oxen lived in the same room with the family —- over here they do just that, which also makes sanitary conditions ver bad.  Until they began to live under bore sanitary conditions there is little hope of keeping down the diseases and plagues which India is infested with always.

It seems the Indians do every thing backwards. I have twenty under me and any time there is something new they have to be shown.  It takes from three to five Indians to do as much as a G.I.

India has countless number of strange sights and places to see and even in our limited sphere we are always encountering something new and interesting.

I have entered (barefooted of course) several temples and heard the history of them and also the goddess of destruction to who the temple is dedicated.  They are really beautiful —but right next to them are these hovels —-

why they have to put the beautiful with the ugly —— the new with the old; The primitive with the modern is beyond me.  You can see cooking over open fires, eating with their hands, grinding grain and threshing rice by hand, primitive carts drawn by oxen.  Children romping around with no more clothes on than they were born with.

The monsoon will be over in about another month or so — If they aren’t I’m afraid we’ll float away.  It has rained almost every day for a long time, and many days right around the clock.

One of our Chaplain’s is from Mankato, Minn. and is a fine fellow and always has a fine sermon for us each Sunday.

Yours for a Victory.

Earle V.L.

from return address Pfc Earle V. Larson

attached 47th Depot Supply Sqdn.