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To Brigadier General Philip B. Peyton

January 23, 1939 [Washington, D.C.]

Dear Buster:

I am enclosing a letter from Nick, along with some enclosures he sent me.¹ I thought they would interest you.

I intended this letter to go by air mail as a birthday greeting, but became so involved with three different committees of Congress in this hectic National Defense business, and the re-orienting of numerous officers in the War Department after each change of front, that I have lost all track of my own personal affairs. So I merely send you the report from the third of the old roommates, which rather shows that he tops the list in the importance of position and achievement. However, I think as a rule we hit a high average—being not at all modest.

Wouldn’t it be a grand thing if we could get together and celebrate a sort of joint birthday party, or anniversary of some kind or another? Nick seems to have been “nicked” in the gall bladder, so each of us have had a turn on the operating table. But at the moment at least we are all here and steaming ahead.

I am going before a string of Committees of Congress today and tomorrow, with reporters thicker than flies.

With my affectionate regards,

Faithfully yours,

Document Copy Text Source: George C. Marshall Papers, Pentagon Office Collection, Selected Materials, George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia.

Document Format: Typed letter.

1. Leonard K. Nicholson, a member of the Board of Directors of the Associated Press, had written to Marshall on January 18.

Recommended Citation: The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, ed. Larry I. Bland and Sharon Ritenour Stevens (Lexington, Va.: The George C. Marshall Foundation, 1981- ). Electronic version based on The Papers of George Catlett Marshall, vol. 1, “The Soldierly Spirit,” December 1880-June 1939 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), p. 686.