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West Pointer who seemed about my age (then 24).  I told him of my problem with conflicting orders, hoping that he would offer to help by doing a bit of telephoning.  Instead he suggested that I take a trip to Saumur and straighten the matter out there.  The 88th, he said, would not be moving into action for at least a week, and meanwhile he had nothing for me to be doing at Amanty.  I welcomed the idea, for it gave me the opportunity to see Saumur in May.  The trip would also involve stopovers in Paris both ways. So on the 23rd of May I found myself back in Saumur, an alumnus visiting the old school.  The adjutant there told me that the order assigning me there had been rescinded.  (It had been, just three days after the original was issued, but the rescinding order had not yet reached me.  I got it some time later).  The adjutant gave me a pass back to Amanty, dated May 23.
     I had hoped to see at Saumur some of my old companions of Section 1, especially John Ransom.  They were all out that day on field exercises except one.  He was Aragon, the mathematician from the University of Illinois with whom I had played chess.  I had lunch with him at the Grand Hotel de Londres, where [[handwritten 'he' added]] was boarding.  It was then the best hotel in Saumur, so when Helen and I visited there in 1938 I went to the Londres without taking the trouble to look it up in Michelin.  I made a big mistake.
     Aragon had been one of the top five in section 1 of our class.  His is the only name of that five missing from the order of April 24th.  I don't know when he was assigned in Saumur, but he was there.  He was not named in my place, for the man who had that honor was Willard Walker of Section 2.  
     The foulup gave me a pleasant little interlude from life at the front.  It occurred because I was serving two masters, the artillery and the air service.  That fact, plus my being a reserve officer, put me into a blind alley as far as promotion was concerned.  So far as I ever heard not a single observer of the reserve corps had been promoted up to the time when my combat career ended.  I may comment on that in another letter.
[[handwritten 'Love, Dad']]