Belgium May 15, 45

Dear Mother & all,
       Received your very nice letter
of May today. It really came thru
in very good time. I was rather
shocked to hear about Aunt Susie's
death. I wrote Morgan a nice letter
and told him how sorry I was
to hear the bad news.
     Well the war over here finally
came to and [sic] end. The government
has announced the point system
so I guess I have enough points
for a twenty four hour pass only.
I will know about what I am
going to do later on.
        Yes I guess the prison camps
is Germany were awlful. I have
seen quite a few of the slave
laborers and some look very bad.

I guess the Germans are really
paying for it now and will for a
long time to come.
      How did you spend Mother's
Day? I attended service here
and the chaplain had a very nice
sermon. I thought of you a lot that
day and how I wished I could be there
with you. Did you receive my card?
I am going to try and get a package
fixed up with things just for you.
This month has gotten me down
on my finances though. I guess we
had something to celebrate though. I
was sure glad to know the war
was really over. Now I have
just to look forward to the day I
get home. I was in Brussels last
week. It really was a sight
to see. The people were so

happy to know the war was
over. They had parades and dances.
The best sight of all was to see
the city brightly lighted again. It
really was a treat to see street
lights on and no black out at
the windows. After two years
of blackout and then light again.
You just can't imagine how it
feels to see it again.
     Our weather has been wonderful
the past week now. It has been
just like summer out. But today
it has cooled off considerably. Well
today I saw some sights, but
will have to wait until latter
to tell about it. Had a letter from
Luella and Marie also today. I
guess I have fell down on my
writing to people considerably,

but really I haven't had a thing
to write about.
     Before I forget it, please draw
some money out of my bank
account and send me $25 money order.
I had to borrow some and want
to pay it back. Try to send it as
soon as possible.
      Did Luella give out the perfume
I sent for her? You once said you
didn't want any but I will send
you something in place of it.
    Well I guess this is enough
for now. Please keep your
letters coming.
                         Love Ralph.


The next letter will be posted on May 17th. 
It is a letter to his brother.

Background Information (and comments):

• Here's one explanation I found of the point system and one soldier's comment about it:

Advanced Service Rating Score

Every WW2 Veteran can tell you how many points he earned towards his discharge. The recent HBO's TV series "The Band of Brothers" only mentioned a little about it in the last episode, which was entitled "Points". Very few people or reference books will explain how the points were awarded.  This is what I have been able to piece together.The Advanced Service Rating Score was a scoring system that awarded points to a soldier and was used to determine who were sent home first. At the end of the war in Germany and Italy, a total of 85 points were required for a soldier to be allowed to return to the States. Otherwise, if you had less than 85 points, you could expect to continue to serve in the Army and most likely be sent to fight the Japanese.  When the Japanese surrendered, the Point System may still have been used to determine who was sent home and who remained as occupation troops.  I have not researched much on the units that were in the Pacific to see if the points applied to them or not.  A few weeks later, the points were lowered to 75, probably soon after Japan surrendered.
After the end of the war, the soldiers were sent home with their units.  Some soldiers might have been transferred to another unit either because their experience were needed elsewhere to fight the Japanese or they had not been in the Army long enough.  I'm not sure what criteria was used to determine which had enough time in service as a unit.

How the Advanced Service Rating Score worked.
    Points were awarded for the following:

+1	Point for each month of service  (between 16 Sept 1940 - 12 May 1945)
+1	Point for each month overseas  (between 16 Sept 1940 - 12 May 1945)
+5	Points for first & each award received:  DSC, LM, SS, DFC, SM, BS, AM, PH
+5	Campaign stars worn on theater ribbons
+12	Points for each child (< 18 yrs)  up to a limit of 3 children.

For example, a GI who had who had been in service for 3 years with 2 years spent overseas, would receive 36 points plus 24 points. Then if he also received a Purple Heart, served in 2 campaigns (such as North Apennines and Po Valley), and had one child then his score would be:
    ASR Score =  36 + 24 + 5 + 10 + 12 = 89    Enough to go home!The problem with the ASR Score is that it rewarded the rear echelon troops who had been overseas a long time even though they had never seen combat.  Many supply troops had served 2 or 3 years overseas.  Whereas, it was unusual for a combat infantryman to survive that long.
I've heard of some soldiers who were sent back to the States before the war was over. From the quote below and what other veterans haves said, I don't think the ASRS was in effect until May of 1945.  They were rotated home based on some other method. For example, pilots were sent home after flying 25 combat missions (later raised to 50). And even if they were sent back to the States, most had to continue to serve in the Army in some capacity.

"I tried to explain to the folks at home how the point system worked, since they, as farmers, just thought that since I'd been gone so long, I should be among the first to come home. The point system was a little more complicated , though, as it had been devised by Army intelligence rather than farmer intelligence. The point system ran this way: any outfit which had men with at least 85 points got to send the same amount of men home as outfits who had men with more than 85 points. Though I had 104 points, Army intelligence did not consider that to be any more than 85 points, or to put it another way, they considered 104 to be equal to 85. It was hard to explain that to the folks back home, as I could hardly figure it out myself. "
      Lloyd Wagner, both above quotes are from his book "And There Shall Be Wars", printed 2000.