Chapter 7

New characters appearing in the next few chapters"

Luang Silapakom

Bill's landlord and teacher, 5'-6" tall, 130 pounds, 53 years old brown eyes, black hair going gray

John

Bill's co-worked, MOS 98G (Voice Intercept Operator), 5'-9" tall, 150 pounds, 23 years old, blond hair, blue eyes, SP/4

Ernie

Translator (Vietnamese), MOS 04B, 5' 8" tall, 160 pounds, 24 years old, brown hair and eyes, SP/5

The entrance to the Operations area was the red guard-shack we had been to last night. There wasn't any trouble getting in today with the new badge I had been issued, plus Duffey was with me and the American MP on duty there recognized him from a distance.

Once inside, we went to a building behind the 292 vans where I met the NCOIC for that shift. He was an SFC (Sergeant First Class, E-7) named Wilson. After introductions, he looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"So is this shipping container yours?" he asked, patting the container near his desk.

"Yes. It was brought in here last night by the First Sergeant and some Lieutenant," I explained.

"And it's classified Top Secret?" he asked pointing to the paper cover sheet taped to it.

"Yes."

"Well, what the hell is it? This thing weighs a ton."

"It's a new type of radio and the container weighs over 300 pounds."

"How much does the radio weigh?" he asked, curious.

"About thirty pounds depending on how it's configured."

"Say again?" he asked. "It's that light?"

"Yes. It has different modules to do different things," I explained.

"Like?"

"Well, there is an encryption module, and there are various modules for very long wavelengths and very short wavelengths. Plus there are the TMs, tools, and replacement parts," I told him.

"It comes with its own replacement parts?" he asked.

"Yes, they are very specialized, and not available through normal supply channels. At the school where I received it, they taught us how to maintain it up to depot level," I told him.

"Damn," he said and sat there for a minute or so. "What about power and antenna requirements?" he finally remembered to ask.

"It will run on whatever you have available. It has its own internal variable power supply, and I can hook it up to whatever antenna you have. It has its own built in matching unit."

"All right. We don't need it right now, but the next time one of these other radios goes down, we'll give yours a try. It's a lot lighter then the R-390As that we are using at present," Wilson told me.

"Yes, it's a new type of radio."

"You know the R-390 and 390As that we're using were classified TS until recently. I guess that a new radio would be, also," Sgt. Wilson said.

Wilson showed me around after Duffey left. There were two vans dedicated to High Speed Morse interception (ditty boppers), one for direction finding, one for voice interception and one for the Air Force. The last van was for equipment maintenance. There were a number of large mobile generators for supplying power to the vans.

Even though it wasn't noon yet, it was hot under the shed and the vans also had all of those radios and other equipment generating heat. This made it hard for the vans integral air conditioning units to keep them cool. I could just imagine what it was like here in the middle of summer.

About 1130, a cook and a helper showed up with chow for the people working here. There weren't enough extra people to keep things operating while some went to eat. It certainly wasn't like the Special Forces camp had been.

After lunch, I checked out the guys in the two Morse intercept vans. They seemed to know what they were doing and appeared to have all of the supplies and things that they needed to do their work. The vans were hot and the air conditioning wasn't keeping up, though it was running full out.

It was about 1345 when SFC Wilson came looking for me.

"We can use your radio," he told me. "One of the receivers in the voice intercept van went out. The smoke drove the guys out of the van. They're pulling the radio now, but maintenance doesn't have a spare ready to go. Will your radio work on voice?"

"Yes, it will work on AM, FM, regular or selective SSB, CW, or RTTY."

"And will it fit in the rack system?"

"Yes, there are adapters."

"Speakers or headphones?"

"Both. I have speakers in the container and there is one built into the receiver."

"What range of frequencies?"

"With the additional modules anything from 600 cycles up to 200 MHz," I informed him.

"Damn, we don't need anything that high or that low. The R390A will go from 0.5 to 30 MHz and that is plenty."

"Yes, mine will do that with ease,"

"All right, let's get it over to trailer three and get it installed. We don't have anyone listening right now and the brass will come unhinged if we miss something important," Wilson said, obviously upset.

We wheeled the shipping container over to the van. It was obvious that the container wasn't going up into the van, as the floor was something over four feet off of the ground, plus there just wasn't any room in the van for it. I opened the case on the concrete pad and pulled out the radio.

"You need a hand?" an anxious Wilson asked.

"No, I'm fine."

The van still held the smell of burning insulation from the other radio, but the smell was being cleared out rapidly with the door and windows open and the air conditioning on full blast. Imagine my surprise when the man in there turned out to be John from last night.

"What have you got there, Sarge?" he asked.

"A new radio," I answered and sat it down on the small desk surface. "Was anything seriously damaged when the old one went up?"

"No, it just made a lot of smoke. All of the connectors are OK," he told me, as he inspected the new radio carefully. I went back out to get the speakers and the encryption unit and then closed and locked the container before returning it to the security cage.

We soon had the radio connected and installed in the rack system. I turned it on and John told me what frequencies they were monitoring. I started tuning across the dial. John and Wilson were in there with me, and both seemed shocked at the appearance of the radio, especially the electronic readouts. I had been moving across the bands for a short time when Wilson stopped me.

"Isn't that a connection for a mike?" he asked pointing at the mike connection.

"Yes, it is."

"This thing has a built in transmitter as well?" he asked.

"Yes, it does. Why?"

"And it only weighs thirty some pounds?" he asked shocked.

"Yes, that's right. It's a new design and uses new components," I told him. He seemed really surprised.

It was right after this that the radio started to spit out a string of Vietnamese. We started the tape recorder right away and Sgt. Wilson went to get a translator for us. The guy who showed up was Ernie, the guy that watched the beers last night.

"That's the North Vietnamese Army at Attapu," he told us after listening for a bit. "They're talking to someone in Hanoi. It seems they had some kind of explosion again last night and they are just getting back on the air.

"They're telling them that all of the explosives in the new magazines went off last night. They want to know why Hanoi keeps sending them bad equipment and explosives. They are claiming it wasn't their fault," he finished with a laugh.

"Hanoi is responding now," Ernie continued, "The person there is screaming at the people in Attapu. He's calling them every derogatory name in the book and promising that heads will roll." We recorded it all as Ernie kept up a running dialog of what was being said. Both parties had definitely lost their cool. They both eventually went of the air.

"Damn," John said, "we never got anything from them in the clear like that before."

"What makes you think it was in the clear?" I asked, and pointed at the encryption module. "The active light has been on the entire time."

"Just damn!" was all that John said.

"Well, that is the third explosion there that I know of," I told them. "There were two explosions there during the time I was in Cambodia."

"You were in Cambodia near there?" they both asked.

"Well, I wasn't near there. We were 75 km away in the tri-border area, but we both saw and heard the first explosion. We only saw the second one, as it wasn't as large. They both lit up the north western sky from the camp," I told them.

"Jeez, what were you doing there?" John asked.

"Operating this radio. I was their contact to the B-team in Ubon," I told him.

"I better take this tape over for analysis," Ernie told us and snipped the tape after shutting off the tape recorder and removing the reel. John put on a new take-up reel and threaded the tape on it from the supply reel. Then he turned to me again.

"Damn, Sarge. Do you have any more war stories? All we get around here is after action reports on stuff. They're usually pretty clinical and dull."

"No, not really. It was pretty peaceful for the rest of my stay there after Attapu," I told him.

SFC Wilson returned some time later to talk to me.

"You may as well work here. You're the one that knows how to use that radio, and we have enough ditty boppers to run things in the Morse intercept area. They can get by here with just one R 390A part of the time. There isn't that much voice traffic at night anyway," he told me.

"Come in at 0800 in the mornings and you can probably go home by 1800 hrs. They can handle the rest of the time with just one 390A. That's subject to change, of course," he finished.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. There was message traffic, but it was mostly routine and we just recorded it and made entries in our log. Ernie sat in there with us but went to get another translator when we picked up a conversation between Hanoi and some place in mainland China.

John left about 1700 and was replaced by a fellow I hadn't met before named Greg. He wasn't very talkative. Wilson came to get me at 1800 hrs and we went over to chow together. The food here wasn't all that bad, but the mess hall was open all of the time because of the need to serve meals to people working 24 hours a day. The cooks had shifts, too.

I was in the tent going over my uniforms when my amulet heated up at about 1915 hrs. Since there wasn't any trouble at present, I assumed something good was going to happen. I put on some civilian clothes and headed for the front gate. There hadn't been any other people in the tent. They were apparently either at work, had gone to the club, or had gone to the ville.