I have been envisioning my then 21 year old Dad sitting in an Army barracks in Germany writing this. He spent his years during the Korean War in Europe playing baseball, football, basketball and track while serving in the Special Services Division of the Army.
August 15, 1955
Hi Bonnie,
just came back from the most enjoyable time I’ve had since I’ve been in this Army. I took a 12 day leave with four other guys on the baseball team and we went to Paris and Amsterdam.
We didn’t have much money, so we did all our sightseeing on foot. We must have averaged 15 miles every day we were in Paris. Every place you ever heard of in Paris, we went to. We saw the Mona Lisa and Venus Di Milo and a lot of the other great artists and sculptors works in the National Museum and also took in the Luxembourg Gardens, Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triomphe, Sacred Heart Church, Notre Dame, Royal Palace, Palace of Justice, Place de la Bastille, the Petit Palace, the La Fleur Gardens, Moulin Rouge, Follies Bergere, Pigalle, Palace de la Concorde, Museum of Natural History, the Magdalena and many others too numerous to mention. In Amsterdam we did quite a bit of resting, but took in a canal tour, the National Museum there and a few other places. Holland is really a clean and beautiful country. It’s by far the most modern and Americanized country in Europe. Everybody has to learn to speak English in school and most of them speak it very well. Except for the thousands of bicycles, it looked a lot like a big city in the states with all the American cars.
We came out second in baseball this summer. We made a good comeback but couldn’t quite overtake the winner. We finished one game out of first.
This will probably be about the next to the last letter you’ll get from me in Europe. As I write this, I’ve only got 30 more days in Germany and about 45 days left in the Army. Believe me it will really be good riddance.
I’ve been writing the Orioles ever since last summer trying to get released from my contract so I could go back to college and play ball, and they finally came through a few weeks ago, so looks like I’ll be back on the campus about January. Maybe Stan and I can play together when he gets out.
Better close and get to bed now. Have to get up bright and early tomorrow and get back to soldiering.
Love,
Loyd
Steve, I will be making copies of these things and sending them on to you!