My name is Russell Lentz, W9RL and my home is in Grayville, Ill. Entered the Army in
spring of 68 by a recuiter in St. Charles, Mo. Ofcourse I fell for the ASA propaganda but in all
honesty I can say that I would do it all again. Not a better, zanier group in the service.
Anyway, after the usual Ft. Lost in the Woods basic, went to Devens.
After about 3 or 4 weeks in holding, started 33B20 school.
Was assigned night school, and drove almost every day without getting
caught. Does anyone remember the winter of 68-69 at Devens? I'll never
forget that one. Being from Southern Ill, and not used to all that much
snow (maybe 3 light falls per year, a 3-4 in. snow is pretty big for us),
I could not believe it when the guys were jumping out of the 3rd floor
windows of the barracks on the hill into the snow drifts. What a
weekend! Anyway, most of my class were sent to Udorn. I remember
watching the moon walk at the club in Oakland. Landed at Udorn air base
the day it was satchel charged. Lovely welcome. At the 7th I was
assigned to Sig Maintenance but actually spent most of my time working
at the Mars station, AB9AD. Bud Johnson, WB4HIJ was there and he had a
Thai call HS4MJ. At that time there were only a handful of active hams
in country so whenever our listings were ran, we would go up on the
amateur bands and cause some pretty awsome pileups. That didn't happen
very often tho as when the band was open, we were running patches. (Andy
Holp, if you are out there, would like to hear from you.) We also ran
a lot of the traffic for the Air base, as their station didn't seem to
do as well as ours. When we ran out of 7th and air base listings, and
the band was still up we would sometimes call over into Viet Nam and run
some traffic for those guys. That Mosely tri-bander at 170 ft. and the
30S1 Collins amp were awesome. AB9AD could run traffic when most of the
other in country stations were still waiting for the band to open to
them. I think we know why that was don't we? Ran thousands of patches
and loved every minute of it. Andy Holp had a couple of Heathkit
Twoer's, so we built us some antennas and ran two meters from the
barracks to the station, and barracks to barracks. That was ok until I
went thru the heads of Dave Markman's AKAI tape deck onto a song he was
recording. We had a guy named Messer that lived 2nd floor of the Sig.
Maint. Barracks. His bunk was on the very end by the door. Now, in the
middle of the night, Messer would go out onto the balcony and piss
instead of using the latrine located in the center of the floor. This
was ok until the Post Commander, a short little full bird who had never
had a command before, decided to try and catch someone doing something
(who knows what!), and was hiding under the steps at the time Messer
decided to unload. Needless to say, the Col was not a happy camper.
But Messer will forever be our hero and I hope he still has his article
15 for pissing on the Post Cammander framed and on display somewhere.
Have many fond memories of our official Sig Maint bar. Mom's Place.
Truly a class act. Made some great friends and have told many stories
of my Udorn experience, too many to tell here but will never forget
those guys. Steve Matheny, Jonesey, Vergile, Bender, Art (the Slope)
Abejon, and many more, would love to hear from you. Anyone remember PFC
Harry Phrog? Another good story. A year went by and time to go, I made
e-5 and tried like hell to stay but they phased out 33B and sent us B's
back to Devens for other schools. So I went to 33D school. Again at
night. A lot of the same guys from the 1st school. We drove every night
this time. Also fired up AA1KBO/K1KBO which was dormant at the time.
Enjoyed running traffick with AB9AD every chance I got, and working the
guys I left behind. My best friend Richard Rausch and I roomed
together.. Rich was my best man in 78 and we still keep in touch. We
were sent TDY to FT. Meade and to a special TR-22 VTR school, and both
of us had orders for Asmara. At the last minute, I was diverted to FS
Berlin so we were split up. I was assigned to R&D (Red Section). It's
now 71 and end is starting to be within reach. Several Udorn guys were
there so that helped. Arrived in Berlin already shorter than most guys
there. That went over good!! If I hadn't been to The 7th, I think my
stay in Berlin would have been more enjoyable but the 7th was a tough
act to follow. I really enjoyed working in Red tho and the things I got
to do there were so neat that it made up for my lack of enthusiam. I
was getting short and a bad attitude by then and really looking forward
to getting out. My re-up NCO never even tried. He just acknowledged
the useless-ness of trying and signed my papers and sent me off. Thank
you sarg! ETS'ed on Feb 2, 72. Would love to hear from anyone who
remembers me. Email or whatever. I'll maybe send some pics for the
home page. Maybe something you can use. Thanks to the webmasters for
the greatest page on the web. So 73 from W9RL, and PSE QSL. I work
about all bands 160-6, and wud love to set up a sked.
