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THE
SCREEN
WRITER
Tonight, after dinner, I walked the top deck wearing my life pre¬ server and regained, for a few minutes at least, the academic sense of shipboard.
Last night, as the troops loaded in the strange white light of our baby spots, and our cameras ground, I felt that I was on the Universal backlot, making Princess O’Hara . . .
And there were the realities of Fort Ord, the strange drive up that day with Holly and Don .... the wonder of driving a jeep, of firing a gun for the first time in my life, and having a sense of exaltation when 1 hit the target.
Emotion is almost completely lacking — for it is difficult to be emotional when you’ve lugged that rucksack off and on a troop train, marched down a deck at two in the morning, found the most appalling quarters. There is only time to be tired — and, if there is some time left over, it is to be mad and say curt, one-syllable words. For no conversation, no .
JULY 26, 1943; Outside of photographing the Divine Services on Sunday and the prizefights in the afternoon, we have done no work. But the ship itself is a job in a way. The water is now rationed and the exasperation of trying to find a basin to shave in, or take a bath — even with scalding hot salt water — or the meals — or something — or the dirt of this cabin, or some of the hideous aggravation I’ve been having.
The chief thing on my mind is the attitude towards me, engen¬ dered now beyond any question by severe anti-Semitism. At Ord,
Lt. Col. C . was potted one night. As I came out of the Officers’
Mess, he hiccoughed and said — in front of the other officers, “Let’s keep quiet. Here comes the REAL enemy!’’ I made a feeble joke, not sure what he meant. In fact, it never occurred to me that
he meant anything at all, until he drunkenly weaved after Lt. L .
and myself, and asked if we were Talmud boys. Then he began an elaborate apology which lasted through dinner at the Officers’ Club, in which he made such statements as these, “You’re gentle¬ men, now, you Jews, and we accept you. But why is it that most of the trouble we have with privilege-seekers occurs with Jews? Why don’t Jews get in the fighting army? I like Jews personally, but
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