In 1961, I joined the Army.
Like a fool I enlisted for the Armored in Germany.
I was sent to Ft. Ord and after scoring in the top 3% on the aptitude tests,
I was asked to transfer to the Army Security Agency.
This meant dropping the Armored and going to a "soft skill" school where ASA picked
me up.
Former ASA personell, check out the various
groups on FaceBook, Yahoo and such.
After training, I was assigned to
Torii Station Okinawa.
Some Torii vets don't remember what it looked like
without the Torii Gate so here is a picture.
Here are 3 pages of Torii Station 1962-63
There I got my first chance to play with computers on an IBM 1401 with a fast tape drive
One of the other vets from there seems to think they were Ampex not IBM drives
and he probably has a better memory than mine.
For the Torii Station buffs reading,
here is picture of the Torii Station Comm Center
taken in late 1962 or early 1963.
From
Okinawa I went to
Thailand and lived in Seri Court.
In the 5th RRU Mekhala Station
I got to fly around Thailand in a
C123
I also got to fly to Chaing Mai in a Thai Airlines DC-3
While in Thailand, the Agency asked me to volunteer for a special
class
learning North Vietnamese at Ft. Meade.
I studied there till my discharge in Dec of 1964.
What I really wanted
to do was special ops in Viet Nam
but honesty was more important.
From
Okinawa I went to