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Nile Kinnick correspondence, January-December 1941
1941-12-31: Front
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December 31, 1941 Dear SB: Mother and Ben have gone to church; George is over to Puitts and I shall write a few notes. A very cold New Year's Eve in Omaha and one worthy of thoughts more sober than usually prevail at this season. As you have already stated, your visit home was a very satisfying one, tho very brief indeed. It gratified us to see that you are so highly pleased with your station right now. I know that I should enjoy -being in your place, and I am sure that you are likingit even better than I thought you would. This training notonly is highly interesting but also is a challenge worthy of your best effort, and may have some bearing on your future after this emergency is over. Emergency is a word too tame for the present status of the world, however. The enormity of the situation seems apparent to all too few people, it seems to me. We suppose that you saw Churchill's Christmas Eve speech, and also his speech before the Congress? I have clipped them for your record book as we know that you will want them. Enclosed is a piece from the Monitor which gives a good picture of the press conference last week. Please return it as I want to put it in also. If this country will only get down to work now, and do what it really is capable of doing. This affair need not drag on year after year. But there is a real job to be done, and the sooner it is realized the sooner we can be gin the reconstruction. You will have a part in that, and I know that you will be ready for that part. What a challenge that will be, too. How can it be anything but an integration of the whole world in a closer group than any of us has imagined possible before. Surely enough people will recognize such a union to be the only possibility of preventing such a holocaust as we now have on our hands. What vision, what courage, what leadership is needed. Unless that kind of stabilization is accomplished it can be only a matter of time until another cunning and diabolical group attempts to do this conquest business over again, with new and now unheardof weapons. You will be living in a most vital period, and I fancy that you are looking fo rward to it. Say, George and I are going to learn the code, and I picked up a little sending outfit designed for boy scouts. However, I find that there are two codes; the regular Morse still used by the RR I believe, and the Continental or International Morse. It is my belief that you are learning the latter, tho you spoke of it as Morse. I am enclosing copies of both codes and I wish that you would promptly return the sheet indicating which you are learning. Ben went down yesterday, Tuesday, to take his Phys exam but they were so busy with Navy phys exams that he couldn't have attention. They gave him the preliminary sheets showing the requirements, and said he should get his credentials together before taking the exams. So he is planning to do that and then go to the Des Moines office. He leave for Ames on Saturday night train. Pres. Friley has asked him to serve on the Student Defence Board and the first meeting is Sunday morning. He will leave for Jersey City Monday evening with five other boys who are going there to interview Colgate etc. B. Hobbs is comingover this evening for a last visit, as he comes down to KC on Friday morning. Barbara's husband has been ordered to report for embarkation, port not stated, Barbara and baby are coming back here. Had a letter from Russ Luerssen to-day sayinghe expects to be there for about two more months. The weather has been too thick to get in his flight training, otherwise he would be done in two weeks. He asked about your advance base and I told him Pensacola, as I wrote a note in return just now. Love Pop
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December 31, 1941 Dear SB: Mother and Ben have gone to church; George is over to Puitts and I shall write a few notes. A very cold New Year's Eve in Omaha and one worthy of thoughts more sober than usually prevail at this season. As you have already stated, your visit home was a very satisfying one, tho very brief indeed. It gratified us to see that you are so highly pleased with your station right now. I know that I should enjoy -being in your place, and I am sure that you are likingit even better than I thought you would. This training notonly is highly interesting but also is a challenge worthy of your best effort, and may have some bearing on your future after this emergency is over. Emergency is a word too tame for the present status of the world, however. The enormity of the situation seems apparent to all too few people, it seems to me. We suppose that you saw Churchill's Christmas Eve speech, and also his speech before the Congress? I have clipped them for your record book as we know that you will want them. Enclosed is a piece from the Monitor which gives a good picture of the press conference last week. Please return it as I want to put it in also. If this country will only get down to work now, and do what it really is capable of doing. This affair need not drag on year after year. But there is a real job to be done, and the sooner it is realized the sooner we can be gin the reconstruction. You will have a part in that, and I know that you will be ready for that part. What a challenge that will be, too. How can it be anything but an integration of the whole world in a closer group than any of us has imagined possible before. Surely enough people will recognize such a union to be the only possibility of preventing such a holocaust as we now have on our hands. What vision, what courage, what leadership is needed. Unless that kind of stabilization is accomplished it can be only a matter of time until another cunning and diabolical group attempts to do this conquest business over again, with new and now unheardof weapons. You will be living in a most vital period, and I fancy that you are looking fo rward to it. Say, George and I are going to learn the code, and I picked up a little sending outfit designed for boy scouts. However, I find that there are two codes; the regular Morse still used by the RR I believe, and the Continental or International Morse. It is my belief that you are learning the latter, tho you spoke of it as Morse. I am enclosing copies of both codes and I wish that you would promptly return the sheet indicating which you are learning. Ben went down yesterday, Tuesday, to take his Phys exam but they were so busy with Navy phys exams that he couldn't have attention. They gave him the preliminary sheets showing the requirements, and said he should get his credentials together before taking the exams. So he is planning to do that and then go to the Des Moines office. He leave for Ames on Saturday night train. Pres. Friley has asked him to serve on the Student Defence Board and the first meeting is Sunday morning. He will leave for Jersey City Monday evening with five other boys who are going there to interview Colgate etc. B. Hobbs is comingover this evening for a last visit, as he comes down to KC on Friday morning. Barbara's husband has been ordered to report for embarkation, port not stated, Barbara and baby are coming back here. Had a letter from Russ Luerssen to-day sayinghe expects to be there for about two more months. The weather has been too thick to get in his flight training, otherwise he would be done in two weeks. He asked about your advance base and I told him Pensacola, as I wrote a note in return just now. Love Pop
Nile Kinnick Collection
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