Here's Abe in In An Immense Tomb.

The grandpa that I ate burgers with as a kid in smoggy San Pedro, CA was no adopter of high technology and could not have predicted his return on the Internet. When the court's IT staff installed a 1980s monochrome terminal in his judge's chambers, he rejected the device as a mystifying intruder.

We have been busy helping to build up this camp, like pioneers. Yesterday I was on a detail clearing brush and pitching tents. Every body works here, including 1st Sgts. I may even be on K.P. one of these days for the 1st time in years. It's a small price to pay for a discharge.

Received your letters of May 25 & 27. Have been busy the last week or so. Hope this last push will bring my career as a soldier to an end. Everything is going along fairly well. It certainly isn’t as rough as it was at the beginning. Even the weather has been cooperative. It has been warm and sunny, so we finally got out of the mud. We are now set up in a spacious, grassy court yard of an immense Okinawan tomb. You have probably seen pictures of the tombs with the court yard enclosed by a massive stone wall.

Well, yesterday was my 4th anniversary in the Army. It's hard to believe that it has been so long. It seems only a short while ago that I was saying adieu to you at [Fort] MacArthur, not knowing when I would see you again. Time certainly seems to have passed quickly when viewed retrospectively; but now each day seems like a month, because I am looking forward to the Great Day.

As you may read in the papers, 10 men from the 17th have already left for home, on May 18th and 7 more left yesterday. I hesitate to arouse any false hopes, but if the process continues I should be on the way home in a month or so. I am now number 63 on the quota list. I hope the thing keeps rolling along regularly.

Received your letters of April 12 and 20. I usually dig my fox hole 6 inches deeper every time I get mail from you. Out here, one sometimes gets careless. There's so much death and destruction all around that it doesn't seem to make much difference whether you live or not. But mail from home usually reminds us that there is another world that we can come back to, and the will to live is revived. I am in the best of health--a little nervous perhaps, but otherwise in pretty good condition.

The battle flag is for Milton. Incidentally, it is a very good souvenir. Air Corps and Navy personnel, who rarely get a chance to visit the battlefield, will pay $35 to $50 for one--so you might advise Milt not to trade it for a Boy Scout knife or some such item. The writing on the battle flag consists of messages of good luck and best wishes for a safe return. Each friend writes on the flag -- signs it --the soldier carries it with him when he leaves for the front.

As for your questions about the war, it seems to me that the Jap defense on the Philippines is much less fanatical than it was at other places. They have abandoned tremendous supplies of guns and ammunition and have retreated from positions in great disorder instead of making the usual last ditch defense.

I am convinced that the majority would surrender if they were not held in check by their officers. On Kwajalein, there was a Jap officer who, in the closing hours of resistance, charged a U.S. tank with his Samurrai sword. He was cut to ribbons by machine gun fire.

I enjoy hearing the rain beat down on the roof. I makes you feel so smug and comfortable. We have cots now and sleep off the ground--just like civilized people.As for purchases of cloth--you seem to forget that economic life has been at a standstill here since the war. The only clothes the people have is what they possessed before the war.