09/24/97 7:24 Memories of an 058 by Ralph R. Reinhold ralph.r.reinhold@boeing.com

---

---

Ft. Devens:
I was in D Company at Ft. Devens. Its First Sergeant was about as cheerful as a pit bull. One thing that stuck in my mind is his insisting on holding mailcall outside the back of the orderly room. Then some of the guys would scoot around under the eves to go in the front door. He would complain about the guys taking the short cut. What he didn't see is that his guys actually knew enough to stay in out of the rain.

One of the troops going to school at the same time as me was Nelson Rockefeller's son. I don't know whether it was the one who disappeared in New Gueani or not. There was a rule against students driving to class then. He drove a Mercedes 300SL Gull Wing. Rank may hath its priveleges, but money controls the government.

One company used to execute a neat box step before coming to a complete hault. Another used to shout "Tit-less WACs Suck!" until someone complained. For those not old enough,WAC was Woman's Army Corp. This was called up because, like the WAC of the time, we had primarily non-combat semi-clerical jobs. The "Tit-less" refered to the fact that almost everyone in the ASA was male at that time.

At Devens, I heard a rumor floating about that The Kingston Trio was going to play at the service club one night. Bunches showed up, but the trio didn't.

One evening after class I was setting at a table in the snackbar on the other side of Con 4 from the Company. Tom Robertson walked up and kicked my table. I had gone through third grade with him when I had moved to a town about 20 miles away and hadn't seen him since about eighth grade. I've run into him a few more times over the years. The last I knew, he was the Fire Chief in Adams WI.

We had a guy who would sleep through the lectures (particularly slide shows) ramrod straight and with his eyes open. I was told that after I was accelerated out of that group, one instructor figured out what was going on and wrote on the board. "If you can leave without waking so- and-so, you can have the rest of the class off." Then everybody got up and left. The instructor shut off the lights and left so-and-so sleeping. He had a lot of 'splanin' to do when the next class showed up.

Kagnew Station:
I completed 058 school the top in my class. I had the choice of Bad Aibling, Sinop, Shimeya, Asmara and some stateside post. I figured I could go to Germany any time and being in an exotic location would impress the girls. Off duty at Sinop was reported to be bad and Shimeya sounded miserable, so the obvious choice was Asmara. I've never been to Germany, by the way.
Although the guys (and then it was all guys) took their job's serious, the criticality of this and the pressure of being "perfect" in copying the code made the situation tense. The outlet was either booze or humor. Humor usually won on duty. It was a toss up off duty.
Kagnew Station had a QRM filter for the Newguys. This in reality was enough of a power supply to light a number of regulator tubes and about eight or ten chunks of boiler plate for a chassis. The idea was on a not to busy day, you would tune in a station on one receiver and find garbage on the other. Then put the key in the middle and send the newguy down to the repair department for the QRM filter. Having been a Ham for four years before joining the Army and being forewarned about the QRM Filter, I was sent down to the repair shop to get a QRM filter by Ron Colletta. I didn't buy it, but I didn't figure I had a choice, I was a PFC and he was an SP5. It was obvious to the tech and to Sgt Human the Trick Chief I wasn't being fooled and Colletta ended up with as much egg on his face as I did by his not keeping me copying code to get off "sidesaddle."

One of the guys, I think it was Ron Coletta would set one receiver to a signal with slow code and one with a fast one. He would set the selector switch on his headsets to the fast signal. Then he would call a newguy over there to show him something. He would put the headset on the newguy and tell him to listen. Then. he would unplug the headset and say, "Watch this!" While the newguy was watching him tie the headset cord in a knot, Ron would flick the key to the slow station. Then plug the headset back in. Occasionally, it would blow the newguy away. Other times, the newguy would know he had been had, but not know how. Sometimes the hint would come from everyone in the room grinning at him.

Up until the late '70s, NSA had not approved any tape eraser. In my time, tape was expendable as it was burned after it was used. One of the engineers at KANU had given me a sob story about how hard it was for them to get tape and asked if I could get a couple of reels which I did. I did this a couple of times and got caught at it. The NCO essentially told me not to do that any more that they could get their own tape. When I explained the facts of life to the engineer, he let it slip that he was cutting the tape in to 7" (home size reels), then copying the AFRS library on to tape and sending it home. I was lucky I didn't get a few months in the
stockade.

One non-Morse interceptor (059) claimed to be able to copy RTTY by ear. He showed us he could with a plausible demonstration. However, come to think of it, I never saw a demonstration side by side with a real teletype.

The one fingered salute was usually responded to with "is that your MOS or your code speed?"At that time the MOS for Infantry was 111.

Tony Conwill came to the CIAAO Hotel while I was there and someone poked him and he fell into the pool. (The pool at Massawa was interesting in that it had direct exchange of its water with the Red Sea.) I don't remember if it really happen, but they were trying and he was so jumpy that the least poke would send him about three feet. I think Tony was about the only guy on post skinnier than me at the time. I was 129 pounds (now I am almost twice the man I used to be) and about 6 feet. I remember him being a good two or three inches taller and I think he said he was 122 pounds and about 6 feet 4 inches or so.

Gazelle ran about the compound of the CIAAO Hotel. The varmints in the area fascinated me. Although I am not a hunter, I never dawned on me I could have forsaken one night at the Oasis and go out and get pictures of animals I would never see anywhere but in zoos. One of them, the Dik-Dik I have only seen stuffed since then. Just to list a few: At the operations compound, we had occasional monkeys try to climb up the power transformers to meet the same fate squirrels meet in this country. Only monkeys were too heavy and the capacity of the transformers was to high that the monkeys stayed up there until they were well done. On one adventure on the road to Dekamera, I saw some wild African Gray Parrots. One trip to Massawa on little 'rina, I photographed about a half dozen feral camels. On the ground between the Operations Company barracks and the Mess Hall there were thousands of locusts. Almost every day on the road between the Operations Company barracks and the Top Five Club there was a hawk which would soar about two or three hundred feet off the ground riding the thermals. Then he would fold up his wings and drop to within a foot of the ground. Several mornings, there were hyena about half way between the post and Tract C.

A story I have told so often, I remember it whether it was true or not. Several of us were chosen to be machine gunners to protect the Operations Compound if need be. My station was on top of the Power House. We had some training consisting of field stripping a .50 caliber and two different types of .30 caliber (this was before the days of the M60) and a Browning Automatic Rifle. Then we all went down to an Ethiopian Army Range on the road to Dekamera to fire for familiarization. (So far, I know this is true.) The following fits in the class of...No shit, I swear it on a stack of Bibles... A gazelle took it in his head to cut across the range. It was only natural that the red blooded 18, 19 and 20 year olds would try to hit the gazelle. Everyone started firing at once. The gazelle increased his speed slightly but otherwise seemed unfazed by the whole thing. In retrospect, the funniest part of the whole thing is that I weight in at about the same as a .50 caliber machine gun and a few ammo cans.

There were some appocraphyl tales about cactus apples. One that I remember is that the
mountain people loved them... so did baboons. To chase off the baboons while they were harvesting cactus apples, the Eritreans would throw rocks at them. The baboons responded in kind. Pretty soon there was a rock fight between the baboons and the Eritreans.

Plants in there area were also fascinating. One thing I remember is that there was a poinsettia tree in front of the Mess Hall which was about 15 to 20 feet high. Along one of the streets in downtown Asmara there was a rose tree as big as most apple trees I've ever seen. There were plants which are called "Mother-in-law's Tongue" which were as tall as I am.

Ed Chapman, Guy Henry and few others wandered about Massawa pulling on Mellotti. I remember the sound of the skipjacks on the water. Guy Henry got up on the break water and commanded the waters of the Red Sea to part trying. Then he said, "I guess I'm not Moses."One of the others said, "Hell, you ain't even a Jew." I found the open roofed movie theaterfascinating. There was a neat roof top bar on a building we called "Four Floors of Whores." I think it was the tallest building on the Massawa sky line.

I remember going to North Beach from Asmara in the middle of the night. We were skinny dipping with a couple of working girls. When I was out to about my shins, I kept being bumped by something under water. Years later, I saw a documentary about some mean shark of the Red Sea who would come into shallow water at night and attack most anything in sight. Damn near messed my drawers then and there even though it was about thirty years later.

Mustaches were uncommon because of the Catch-22 rules for wearing one. Mainly you had to have it on your ID, but they wouldn't let you get a new ID unless you lost your old one and you got in trouble if you lost your old one. Two mustaches stick in my mind. One guy, I think his name was Irv Beebe had one that perturbed over his lower lip. He looked like he was talking without moving his lips. He, like me, was a member of the ET2US ham club. One time he was having a particularly bad time being understood on sideband. We told him he was going to have to shave off the mustache. Another was a guy of Hispanic descent who Tony Conwill teased about being "Pancho Villa." I think this guy's name was Mays. Obviously, he was nicknamed "Willy."

The ham club was fun, all you had to do is call "QRZ DE ET2US" and you had all the stations you could handle. One of the guys clamed to have worked HZ1AA, the Saudi Crown Prince of the time.One guy was from Yazoo City MS. After Jerry Clower came on the scene with his various odes to Percy Ledbedder, I became convinced the guy's name was Percy (not Ledbedder). I finally found a stash of pictures I thought was lost. There he was. On the back was written Sidney Rogers. I must have had his name mixed up with one of my other partners in crime.

A recent television news magazine had a bit about a fad of twenty-somethings drinking an Italian liquor which tasted something like licorice. Appocraphyl accounts had it that it was mildly hallucinogenic. I remember Sabib as tasting somewhere between anisette and kerosene. One time, I went to check my mail and the 2nd floor operations company day room had a bridge game going on. Sydney Rogers was there, but I can't remember who else. (I think the statute of limitations on drinking in the barracks has passed.) While most everywhere else I was in the Army there was a poker game, at Kagnew station, there was always a bridge game going on. I can no longer remember who my room mates were, but I can remember their bridge game. Anyway, they al were toking on a bottle of sabib. I heard tales of people seeing the fluorescent lights coming out of the sockets, turning while changing colors. The stuff tasted so bad, I never could get to that point. When I had been at Torii Station for a while, a guy from Oakland was heading home. He had heard my tales about sabib and wanted to know about it. I told him how it tasted a bit like anisette. He decided since the NCO club didn't have sabib, he would drink anisette. He, Walt Sims and I went down to our hutch in the village and proceeded to empty out a few bottles orally. While Walt and I worked on the rice whiskey we called Saki with a tad bit of anisette, the guy from Oakland worked on his own private stock of the stuff. At some point with about a half inch in the bottle, he held it up and studied it. Then he said, "When do you get drunk on this stuff?" And passed out. Walt looked me and said, "Now, I guess."

One of the Mess Sergeants was an excellent cook. I can't remember his name. I later ran into him on Okinawa. He would take his Mother's cake recipe and enlarge it 50 times and give us a chocolate cake to die for. When it came time to have powdered eggs, he would throw a whole egg into the batch distributing egg shells over almost every helpling. Everyone thought we were getting fresh eggs.

Toby Tyler was from Kentucky. At or around Lexington, I think. He was very bright , but talked very slow. He wouldn't have been in the ASA if he hadn't been smart, but it showed when you listened to what he had to say, not how he said it. When Jeff Foxworthy said that when Yankees hear a Southern accent, they automatically deduct 100 points from the speakers IQ. I was guilty of that with Toby until I shut up and listened. Sometimes us Yankees would try to finish his sentences so we could get on with it. It would frustrate him to no end. Now that I can't remember what I was going to say about half the time, I can see his frustrations. Fortunately for me, everyone seems to blame it on the "absent minded professor" syndrome and not stupidity.

During one walk to downtown Asmara and I stopped at the Blue Nile bar. The women were preparing coffee and insisted we have some. It was boiled in a small metal flask with grounds and sugar and had the consistency of syrup and was strong as all getout but I really enjoyed it. Just a few years ago, I found it was akin to being invited to a Japanese tea ceremony and really quite an honor.

"Johnny Bosche" was a fun character. I ran into him later at Torii Station and recently found out he became a "lifer." One thing I remember most about him was running into him on a side street between Kagnew Station (Tract B?) and Radio Marina (Tract A). He had a large grocery bag."Hey Johnny! Where you going with all the food?""Food Hell! These are cigarettes." He must have corralled every non-smoker on post and got them to buy their two carton ration.

One of the things I enjoyed the most was the after "siesta" promenade. All of the young ladies would parade up and down the main street in town. Kinda like the cruising going on in the states at the time. I think it was called Haile Selassie Avenue. Even then, I admired the beauty (of both the girls and the street). Something I learned recently is that Eritreans did not have a family name. The child was given two names without family connection.

I remember copying a "new" station only to find out when I got it from Tony Conwill that I had been copying a "v" for a "4." I couldn't believe I was that stupid. It was a critical situation so panic probably overrode common sense. First of all, I should have known better because it sounded clear, not like a frog or drifting constantly.

Bob Fay was an Arabic linguist. He knew every amharic language there was...41, I believe, several of them were Ethiopic, Amaharic, Tigre, Tigranian, etc. One of the linguists, I think it was him, started to teach an Arabic class on Eve's. He spent some time teaching the fine art of Arabic cursing..."Shit in your hat."; "May 47 owls defecate on your Mother's tomb."; "May jackals drag your entrails through the streets of Bagdad." Unfortunately, I don't remember one in Arabic.

Eritrea is home to a family of beetles which include the Rhinoceros Beetle. This thing is about 25% larger than a silver dollar in diameter and carries the larvae on its back. It has a pair of large horns on the front. I remember it as being sorta lady bug colored. Ugh! Anyway, a number of guys swore that during mating season, they would find two males (don't ask me how they knew) and then tie a string to the each horn and throw them over a small string strung like a clothes line. They would try to tear each other apart.

One time when I rode the Little 'rina to Massawa there was a woman in an all black Muslim costume. I asked one of the English speaking Eritreans I had met were she was from. He said "Afar." It wasn't until 33 years later at "Eritrean Night" in Huntsville I learned that Afar was an ethnic region in Eritrea.

One thing I never figured out. Why sometimes we rode out to Tract C, the Operations Building, on Deuce and a halfs (I've never heard anyone say deuce and a halves.) and other times in buses. Where were the buses at other times? Did they take turns hauling people to the other Tracts? Why didn't they stagger shift change time? I guess wages were cheap and they had the vehicles anyway.

A feature about Asmara I cannot erase from my memory is flies. Flies everywhere and on everyone. I about went nuts at first and then was immune to them like everyone else. Later at Ft. Hood, I about drove someone nuts because I had a fly crawling on my face and wasn't even flinching. I don't remember who, except I know it wasn't Don Tipton. 'Cause he'd "been there and done that."

Near the rear gate, there was a hill. This hill had a unique use. People would walk into town along the road to the Operations Building which also served the Signal Corps transmitting and receiving sites. After a long walk, apparently their bodies would start to work and they would squat on the hill and leave a deposit. I wonder if this is why the hyena hung out in the area. Sorta puts a whole new meaning to "Shit eatin' dog."

Kagnew Station was kind of unique in several ways. We held one Trick Picnic at the Ethiopian Police farm near the airport. I was reviewing a bunch of pictures lately. At the Trick Picnic, they played volley ball and soft ball. Some of the guys were wearing sports jerseys, some polo or golf shirts, some T-shirts and others in sports shirts. Other than the fact there was a notable absence of woman, this group could have been the young guys and gals I work with today. Oh, except for the baobob and acacia trees.

This picnic gave me the best look at the airport. I found its bedspring radar antenna interesting. One day while coming home from the Operations Building, we saw smoke over the airport. We asked some questions and found out what was supposed to have happened. It seems that line officers in the Ethiopian Army had Capital authority. It seems the wing leader didn't give wheels down order and the other pilots decided to take their chances with the runway rather than their officer's pistol.

One of the Aden Airlines' planes would cut particularly low over the antenna farm. Sometimes going between towers. We ran into an Aden Airlines' pilot in a bar in town one night and asked him why they did that. He said he could see the towers quite well and the more shallow approach made his airplane easier to handle at the high altitude. We asked him how well he could see the wire. "Wire? What wire?" As we told him that most of the towers were corner posts for rhombic antennas we could see the blood drain from his face. When we added that the wire between the towers was about 1/4" in diameter, he visibly slumped.

My wife is an artist. At one Mall show a number of years ago, one of the other husbands was tending his wife's booth. I commented on an acacia saying, "We had trees like that in Ethiopia." He said, "It couldn't be, that tree is in Africa." Failing geography isn't limited to the young 'uns.

Ft. Hood:

At Hood, the CO was not a strong believer in make work. If we didn't have anything to do, he preferred we would disappear. While the combat arms people needed "buck slips" to go to snack bars, PXes or the NCO Club, we were free to roam as we wished as long as we had our real work done. One thing we had which distinguished us from everyone else was that the 313th ASA Bn wore the 18th Airborne Corps patch. Sometimes we called it "Puff the Magic Dragon" and others "The Pukin' Lizard." If you went into nearly anyplace on the base, even Killeen, there were more 18th Airborne Corps patches than any other. We shared the barracks with an MP Company. One of them told us that everyone on post was convinced the whole Corps was out in the woods. He thought it was funny and wasn't about to educate them any different.

The first hitch coincided with a good chunk of the folk song era. The ASAers were of the mentality attracted to this fad and as a result, many folk songs were sung around the beer barrels and else where. Usually not particularly good, I believe my contribution was a major cause of that. "Puff the Magic Dragon" was a popular Peter, Paul and Mary; song of this time frame, hence the name.

We went on one field problem while I was there. We were evenly divided between the two armored divisions. I believe these were the First and Second Armor. I've told a story about waking up on my 21st birthday with an armadillo on my chest. He was nearly as near sighted as I was and I don't know who was more scared. I don't really remember whether it was true or not, but it is a good story and I keep telling it.

With a lot of nothing to do, the CO assigned a number of guys as drivers to the three young Lieutenants we had...Dandaneau, Czerwynski, and Griskowitz (I think) . Dandaneau was stuck with Murray. On one trip, Murray took Dandaneau into Killeen to pick up a bunch of ROTC guys from the train. They were on their way to us as summer camp. Each lieutenant was assigned two ROTC guys. On the way back, they passed a very pregnant woman. Lt. Dan said, "Only a prick would do something like that." Murray, Lt. Dan and the to ROTC guys almost didn't make it back to the company.

In those days, you didn't go by air much....The railroads didn't recognize that they were in the transportation business and didn't fill the vacuum created by the large jet-liners then available. Knowing in advance the impact the jet was going to have on their passenger business (look back at their advertising), they should have started feeder routes to the major airports. Had they done this and modernized, they would be making a good profit at rail travel and smaller cities like Huntsville would not have an airport. I don't object, the sale of 737s keeps my employer very solvent.

The guys were great scroungers. When we had our first IG inspection after they returned from the Cuban Missile Crisis, we threw out two dumpsters full of stuff we shouldn't have had. I scrounged a 28 volt version of a 4CX250B from the dumpster but never found a use for it.

Before being sent to Ft. Hood, the company I was in was stationed at Ft. Huachuca doing R&D. Some of still was being done. For example we got a Zenith Transoceanic equipped as a RDF unit. Another thing we got were some of the first M113. When I looked a book on the M113, I noticed that they first become operational in June of 1963. We had them prior to going to Florida for the Missile Crisis. These had two intercept positions consisting of two R392s, an AN/TGC-14 teletype as a mill, and an Ampex tape recorder. I can't remember either the commercial or the military designation of the tape recorder. I am sure it did not have a standard designation as it had an NSA property tag on it. I was told that the rack these two positions were mounted on came from the belly pod of RB-47s which had a curved bottom. As a result, if you were over about 5' tall, you were a little cramped. Along about 5' 6" you were down right uncomfortable. At my 6', it was almost painful. When Lt. Dan evaluated the positions, he said "These were great if there was an MOS for midgets."

Ed Murray told two stories. One, he and Lt. Dan' (Dandeneau I think) went up to Gatesville and got themselves a fifth. At midnight they were standing on top of an APC singing the Maine Stein Song. Ed also told of having a runner wake him up in the middle of the night and asked

"Where is the officer's tent?"
"The what?"
"Officer's tent."
"What's that?"
"Where do your officers sleep?"
"Over here on the ground next to me. Where the hell do you suppose?"

I had to qualify with my carbine the day before clearing post and getting out of the Army. I saw no sense to it. The range officer saw no humor in my shooting at each target until I emptied the clip or knocked it down, which ever came first.

Torii Station:
I developed some problems with my family and finances to continue with college. Somehow, I let my mother talk me into re-enlisting to get me out of it. I regretted it from day one. I spent the next three years with a short timers attitude. The local recruiter said I couldn't change my MOS. So, I signed up for number of different stations. I got one of them...Torii Station.

When I first arrived at Torii, I didn't have a clearance. I worked in the mail room with Ron Vella. He called me a shirmula which he claimed was Italian for bum. One day while still awaiting a clearance, I was sitting the NCO Club griping about the needless secrecy. Anyone with half a brain could figure out the mission from the location and the direction of the rhombic antennas. One of the guys challenged me. I said that I bet there was mostly Whiskey in the operations building. He laughed saying that I was stupid. The other three guys at the table told him that I knew exactly what I was talking about and they would explain it as soon as they got to work the next day.

Tichenor, I can't remember his first name, had a Tuhatsu motorcycle which had about 75 ccs. He drove it like it was a 425 cc. One trip between Koza and New Koza, he slipped on the dirt while leaving the pavement and broke his hip. This left Camp Kue Hospital with a situation the dreaded. Surgery of some one from Torii Station because 1) they couldn't put the poor sucker out and 2) the ASA would send one of his fellow workers down to listen and see if he revealed any classified information. There is one thing that the surgeons hated and that was a guy with the 2,000,000 questions an hour of a 2 year old. The security guard assigned to him reported that inspite of being heavily sedated, Tichenor pinched one of the Nurse's Ass. Never underestimate the power of a 20 year old's libido.

When I was on casual detachment waiting for my clearance to be reinstated, I was asked to move some "empty" teletype boxes around. One of the top ones wasn't empty. When we tried to move the stack, the weight made it feel like it was stuck on something. Using the primary ASA theme for mechanics, if it is stuck get a bigger hammer. I pushed as hard as I could (130 lbs didn't mean much). The stack moved about two or three inches and started to wiggle. Then the top box dropped and landed on my toes. Lucky for me that I was wearing combat boots. Also, it happened to strike the very toes which I had chopped an extra joint into when I was about four and there was strong scar tissue. The doctor at Camp Kue told me that had the two events not combined, I would have had a crushed toe.

I remember a transmitter going down while listening on Okinawa and sitting there. The trick chief asking why I wasn't copying. I told him, "He went, diddly dah dee dah!" He asked, "Reinhold. You got them singing to you now?"

At the Torii Station NCO Club, I walked up to an unoccupied slot and dropped a quarter in and hit the Jackpot. Later someone told me that the Sergeant at Arms had been feeding the machine all day and probably would have liked to kill me.

At the time of my stay, there was sort of an agreement that we didn't salute. One time four new shavetails were coming up the hill from the Operations Building toward the Headquarters or Main Gate. Someone, was with me and said, "Let's salute 'em ' n' see what the do." Well, of course their reaction was quite shocked and one managed to slug one of the others. We had a good laugh over it for months.

It seemed every VIP that passed through Okinawa needed to go through the Operations Building. When they were coming, we had to cover up all of the operational aids on the receiver consoles. We affectionately called them "Suzy Tours" after a commercial agency on the island of that name.

The Chief of ASA Pacific (CASAPAC) had his own business jet. We went to see it at Kadena. It was easy to spot, instead of the standard markings, it was white with an "Old Crow and White Lightning" (Later known as the Lightening Fast Chicken Plucker) patch on the tail. In those days, we didn't have commanding generals, we had chiefs.

With the threat of Vietnam hanging over our heads, the Base Commander decided we should have practice war games out in the antenna field (which was also occupied by sugar cane). After the first trick had theirs and 34 ended up in the hospital with injuries due to the wadding in the blanks, CASAPAC instructed him this was not a good idea and it would be remembered at the time his bird was considered for the third time.

While Major Rigo was OK, the favorite officer with the troops was Lt. Thomas. Some of the guys held an impromptu promotion party at the NCO Club for him when he became Captain. I don't know if he ever knew it. Having a party at Torii usually didn't require much of an excuse.

Before it was the Officer's Club, one of the Quonset huts was an Annex to the NCO Club which was open from about 5 at night until 6 in the morning. It was not unusual for some of us to get off the Eve' Shift and order a table full of San Miguels. One night, after quite a few table fulls some of us became a little bit rowdy and the Sergeant-at-Arms decided we were too loud for him and required too much watching so he through us out. We sat out on the steps singing songs...two I remember were "We Shall Overcome." because of the imagined injustice and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" because of the song having been sung as background for the execution of the PFC deserter in WWII as depicted in "The Longest Day." We probably irritated the shit out of the guys in the lower two barracks, but I don't recall anybody complaining.

One night, Walt Sims and I decided to hit all the bars in Nomanue (Naha). As we were wondering from the bus stop, we passed a shop with a very pretty mannequin. Walt said that he was in love. Each bar we hit, we bought a round of drinks and drank ours. Then we collected a match box and left. At the end of the night, we had 123 match books. I still have them pasted to a board someplace.

One typhoon hit the island about time to break for lunch, we put on our ponchos and steel pots and headed from the operations building to the mess hall. The wind blew my steel pot off. I have a lot of respect for hurricanes, but I can't understand all of the damage in our hurricane areas each year.

In 1964 & 1965, the straight day "Trick" of 51st Special Opns Company was mostly one high school graduating class of from Maui who all enlisted on the buddy plan. Most of the guys were sansei with one haole. One guy, I think his name was Allen Ishikani, would be checked by the MPs and claim to be Okinawan and couldn't speak English. If he was checked by the Ryukyuan Police, he claimed to be American and couldn't speak Japanese. I don't want to insinuate he was the cause, but they started joint patrols after that.

After someone had done something particularly idiotic, a skill many of us possessed, Major Rigo, the CO of the 51st SOC, made the statement, "One of these days, I'm going to get a sign made and post it at the gate to the operations building. It will say, 'Through these portals pass the most brilliant criminal minds in the world.'" I think we were precursors of "Hackers."

One linguist re-enlisted for 6 years. With Pro-pay 3, he got 18 months of E-5 wages in a chunk. He then took re-enlistment leave and disappeared. After he was 45 days overdue, they posted a reward and he had his sweetie turn him in. They were going to nail him with desertion. However, at the time, Okinawa was under Military Government and therefore, a military base. All they could get him for was failure to repair, a misdemeanor. He offered to take a General Discharge if they would let him keep his bonus. They accepted.

The base was also known as JSPC which stood for Joint Sobe Processing Center. Sobe was the village just north of Torii Station. I was there for several months before it dawned on me that SOBE was not an acronym. It got the name Processing Center from a then very powerful computer...a pair of IBM 1040s strapped together. Probably about as powerful as a 386, maybe not quite. I know of one benchmark on an IBM 360 in compiled FORTRAN which ran faster on a VIC-20 in interpreted BASIC. Anyway, in those days people lived in awe of computers. The story went that they had programmed it to look for certain common errors made by newguys. If these occurred during the Mid shift, it would print out "I'm tired leave me alone." Then, shut itself down.

Torii Station was long the site of protest. Why it and not any of the larger bases, I don't know. The story goes that shortly before I arrived there was a group protesting the foreign dogs on Japanese soil at the operations building. A few weeks later, the same bunch was protesting the JSDF being on foreign soil at Kadena Air Base. Protests have continued through today. There was one on national news and later in the June 1997 National Geographic at the Wollen- Weber.

A couple tales from the Korean war. Probably apocryphal: One guy was working a DF site by himself. A North Korean broke into the hut and held him at gun point. This guy figured it was time to bend over and kiss his ass good-bye, but the North Korean ordered the DFer back against the wall. Then the North Korean grabbed the mill and left.

One instructor at Devens swore this happened to him. They had a receiving site in a cave with transportable (gin-pole) antennas set up. Everything went silent. They went out and looked and all of the antennas had been knocked down. They put them up again and went back to work. About six hours later, the same thing happened. When they opened up the Stars and Stripes the next morning, they found they had been behind enemy lines for six hours.

After all: About ten years ago, my organization was doing research in millimeter wave seekers and low resolution imaging. The needed a high bandwidth tape recorder to analyzed the data. After much whining and gnashing of teeth, they finally got approval to buy the latest high bandwidth recorder from Ampex. After its arrival the test engineer proudly lead me down to the signal processing laboratory to show off his new acquisition. When I saw it, I broke out laughing. He asked what was so funny. I said, well, this may be the latest, state-of-the-art recorder, but I had seen one of these before. He challenged me and I said, "The first time I saw one of these was in 1961 and it had a label at the top and bottom of each of the 4 racks which said 'SECRET...PROPERTY OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY." I couldn't help but wonder what the true state of the art was.