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September 20, 1944

I suffered another “wound” because of the war. Yesterday I lost a vital tooth. Many times fillings have been broken out because of rocks in the rice and they cannot be fixed here properly and, as a result, they get a little worse each time until finally extraction is necessary. I fear I shall lose more before all is finished here. I prefer our old friends, the weevils; they do not destroy the teeth. Qtrs. personnel have again been reclassified for work. The medics maintain, and rightly so, that none of them should work but pressure from captors through work office makes them do this — the bks. ldrs. go to the medics and try to arrange classes so that as few as possible will be made available and, between the two, the sick bay has its troubles. It has now practically reached absurdness — there are classes A, B, C, D, E at present. A – all day outside; B – 1/2 day outside; C – all day inside; D – 1/2 day inside, and E – no work. The Jap authorized spec. duty isn’t enough to run the camp properly and therefore qtrs. men are used. Now a relatively healthy man properly marked is useful as spec. duty, hence more pressure. Every morning at about 1100, I turn in figures showing available men in each category and on these figures my next day’s details are based. If a man gets sick during the day or night following, it is almost impossible to get him off for sick call. So far all qtrs. men are not called for but in duty bks. all duty men are. There is but little real cooperation among those handling details and sick bay — partly because no one trusts anyone alas, there is practically no cooperation anywhere anymore. Every one with a chance to be dishonest is suspected –avoiding the appearance of evil is more to be desired than avoiding evil. Everyone thinks the galleys are stealing us blind — to some extent they are; likewise with the commissary and there too there are malpractices, but the cliques are so strong that it is impossible to do anything about it. Those in power have no consideration for those “out” but the law is “you will take it and like it.” The main power cliques deal in necessities or personnel control – hqtrs., comm., supply, sick bays and galleys — they play ball with each other and cannot be beaten here. It is not that I think the malpractices so bad as that I think the complaints coming from proper people through regular channels should be recognized — they are not.

Our setup here remains the same; the race proceeds neck and neck — each day we hope something will happen to break the deadlock in our favor, but so far no sign of it. Suppose Siegfried was slain by dragon and Horatio hadn’t held the bridge, how would it affect us? Sieg was a symbol of power, s’pose he is gone? Will it break the myth of power? It probably would, so many of us have lost faith, probably never to regain it — they were not strong enough.