Tobia
COPY

Headquarters 323d Engr. Bn.
Camp Breckenridge, Ky.
Wed. Spt 23, 1942

My dear Dr Shea,

It has been some time since I last saw you and I have wanted to write you and I have wanted to write you long before this but this is really the first chance that I have had to write to you.

A s you know,I am assigned to the 323d Engineering Battalion. As I thoght, the outfit and Camp is a brandnew one. Our outfit is the Engineer Battalion for the 98th Division which was actvated during the last war but never saw action overseas. [The shouldersleeve insignia for the 98th Division is described as follows:

gUpon a blue shield of the shape of the shield of the Great S eal of the State of New York,within an Ornage border an Indian head in profile with five feathers in top knot in orange. Height of the shield, 3 inches,Width 21/2 inches, border 3/16 of an inch wide.
h
The territory of this division is the greater portion of New York State. The colors are those of the Dutch House of Nassau, the device is the Iroquois Chief, the feathers representing the Five Nations of the Iroquois confederacy
h. I thought you might be interested in the insignia that is why I wrote the above.
The day after my arrival at Camp Breckenridge, I was assigned the job of Personnel Officer for the Battalion. I expected that I would probably be assigned this job because I had quite a bit of Personnel Work while I was an Enlisted man. A couple of days later I was also assigned the job of being Classification Officer for the Battalion.
The job of Classification officer consists of seeing that every man is assigned to the job that he is best fitted for. You see when we receive our men we are going to receive raw, green recruits right off the streets of New York, the hills of Kentucky and the farms of Pennsylvania. They will not have had any basic training at all. It will be our job here to make soldiers out of them. My job will be to take their personnel cards on which is shown their qualifications and then to assign them to Engineer jobs which they are best fitted for. It is quite an interesting job. It does become involved, at times, though. I have been in the Engineers for about 5 years on and off so I know what qualifications are required for most of the jobs which we have open in our organization.
I was also assigned one other job in addition to my other duties which is a three departmen6 job. The title is S pecial Services Officer. It consists of the Morale of the men of the Battalion, the Athletic program, and the Recreation program. So far, I have been quite busy with the Athletic part of the job. You see we have an hour of athletics each afternoon and three hours on Saturday. I have to make a schedule for the athletics. This week I have arranged 4 soft ball games with other outfits for both the Officers and the Enlisted Men. We have a very good Enlisted Men
fs team, but the Officers are only fair. My assistant here in the office is the best player on the Enlisted team. We also have an obstacle course which we have to run to get into condition. We run it during our athletic program. This Saturday we have an hour and a half march and an hour and a half devoted to Mass Games. The men enjoy this time for athletics very much. It is the last hour in the day so sometimes they play for an extra half hour or more.
For the first two weeks I had to give a class in Company Administration to the Company Clerks,Personnel Section and the 1st Sergeants in Each Company in the Battalion. We had quite an interesting class. I guess that that class was the first real class that I ever had to conduct all by myself. It was quite interesting. I enjoyed preparing my lessons and conducting them very much. Some of the 1st Sergeants have been in service before I ever thought of joining the army. It was quite difficult to keep them interested because most of the material I had to give in class was something that they knew for years.
They were always ready to catch me on anything I said which may have sounded odd to them. I had to be very careful.
In my Personnel Section I have a Technical Sergeant for my assistant and a Company Clerk from each company who,represents his company intthe Battalion Personnel Section. I have very good clerks who really know their job so I do not have very much trouble with the output of our work. We all had to attend a school on Classification for about 10 days. It was quite interesting. Tonight I am Battalion officers of the Day. My friend, who was Battalion Officer of the Day was sent to the hospital because he injured his leg while running the obstacle course today, so I am relieving him until he comes back from the hospital.
I have to make a bed check at 11:00 P.M. to see that everyone that is not out on pass is in their respective quarters.
The country here is not so bad. It is much better than at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. The whole camp is brand new. The buildings and roads were started only last May and we now have just about a complete camp.
It has been quite cool hhre this week. We expect to dhnage into winter clothes very soon. We are still wearing our cotton uniform.
Has Mr. Shea been called to active duty yet? I hope that he gets sent to a good post when he does start his duty. The place you are sent to really means a good deal.

Well I guess the Summer School is all over and you are now on your fall term. It would feel good to be back in school at Newark again. According to Dick Gutzeit,several more of the fellows were called into service. Soon you will not have anyone in school any more except some girls. I do not think you would like that so very much. I bet you miss all of the boys that were at sch ool that are now in the service. There are so many of them even for so small a school. Well, Dr. Shea, I guess that is about all I have to tell you. I hope you will get a chance to write me. I will be very happy to hear from you. I forgot. I was able to get to South Bend, Indiana to see my sister. I am the proud uncle of a 4 month old little girl. I think I told you I had a sister in South Bend. It is 400 miles from here. It takes all n night to get there by train. My sister took me all through N.D. University and Saint Marys My brother-in-law teaches at N.D. It certainly is a wonderful school. I may be able to go up there to see a football game this season if I can get off. I guess I will close now. Remember me to everyone at school. Write when you get a chance.
c.I will write again as I get another chance. ,
Your friend
Peter Tobia