[aft_lizard]

FWIW, when I was in the Army, memos and forms would be dated 4 May 1972 never, ever, "04 May 1972". The leading zero on the date is very suspicous to me. Anyone else smell a rat, or is just me?>>

Not really, I have seen different versions of dating on my own paper work such as 04051972 or 04MAY72 or the above 04 May 1972. I am curious that its not capitalized, as is usual but the form isnt that odd.

Part of the language in some of the official letterhead memos doesnt jive. I remember I had to type a new letter 10 times because my language wasnt proper for official military correspondence even being just a memo. Words like doesn't and don't generally are not acceptable, there is of course an official acronym list one must use also.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

You could be right. They just don't convey the feel of bona fide military writing to me.

When I was in the Army, there was a field manual with "letters for all occasions" which pretty much gave the exact language for any letter sent. I typed up a lot of notices of security clearance revocations, the standard reason given being, "Your continued abuse of illegal drugs." Once in while we got something interesting like, "Your participation in lewd, indecent and immoral acts." (Couple of guys caught getting it on while on guard duty. Probably get a medal in Clinton's Army.)

[HangThemHigh]

In the 2nd paragraph of the 04 May letter, 111th is shown with a superscripted th and it looks to me like the font is a slightly reduced size. Is that possible on a typewriter?