Marvin W. Beach CTT2, 1966-1969 I finished high school at Fairforest High in 1963, in Spartanburg, SC. I then went to business school at Robinson’s-Cecil’s Business School in Spartanburg, SC. After graduation, I did a lot of office jobs, the first of which was writing letters to President Kennedy and U.S. Senators to try and get freight rates lowered. President Kennedy remarked this was the most letters he ever received during his time in office, and he thought it must be one person doing all the writing. I would write a letter and get some railroad worker to sign it. I did this in a railroad station and worked under a policeman affiliated with the FBI. I did a job as bookkeeper for a small wooden pallet operation in Inman,SC even though I virtually knew nothing about bookkeeping. When this caught up to me, I did office work and catalog printing for Thomas & Howard Wholesale Grocery Co. in Spartanburg, SC. Then, I worked at Southern Wood Preserving Company doing everything from running the supply room, gassing up every type of yard vehicle imaginable, figuring the payroll for the entire staff, to calculating board feet of lumber. After inhaling creosote dust for a year or so, I received a “Greetings” letter from Uncle Sam. This unfortunately was during the Vietnam hot and heavy days. I was called to Fort Jackson, SC for an Army physical. This meant getting down to the draft board about 4 a.m. to catch a bus to Ft Jackson at Columbia, SC. When we got to Columbia, a lot of these guys made it impossible to sleep because they were roaming around most of the night. This was the hardest part having to function the next day with no sleep! Due to some complications, I went back another time or two. Then, I decided it was time to join something a little safer, even though it meant four years versus two. I just might return back to the U.S. I rode, in my jeep, to the Post Office building on Magnolia Street in Spartanburg and went downstairs to the Navy recruiter. I had to sign saying I didn’t belong to the KKK, John Birch Society etc. I then went back to Ft Jackson, SC and took the Navy physical. I was still trying to delay leaving so I joined a delay program putting me at Great Lakes in the spring or summer. Well, you know the recruiter bit....I got a call almost immediately telling me that I had to leave right away if I wanted the only spot left in electronics....what a lie!...Anyway, I bit, and left a few days later for Great Lakes in the beginning of winter 1966... At the Great Lakes Training Center, I had a tough company commander that really considered me a screw up as I continuously got hit during inspection for “No Shave” because no matter how much I shaved I still had a five o’clock shadow. Anyway with my typing background, I got a job working in the office with the Chiefs. They sent me trudging through the snow and ice to get doughnuts or soup. It wasn’t bad because I got to eat all the doughnuts they had left over. But, then came the dreaded swimming test. I couldn’t swim a lick. They took us in a room and asked who couldn’t swim. Four of us raised our hands. So they told us to stay behind and everyone else that could swim went out to swim. Well, the guy in charge came back and said, There are four of you here. Only three raised their hand. One of you can swim. We are going to find out right now which one of you can swim. So out we go and jump off the diving board. I went straight to the bottom. After they handed me a cane pole to pull me out, I was reprimanded for climbing the pole. Anyway, to make a long story short, I had to return back to training and had missed all the beginning instructions. I miserably failed inspections, and actually failed the last swimming test. I was due to be set back to begin over but was given one more chance to pass the swimming test if I could swim around the perimeter of the pool, on my back, I was considered passed. I went down right after lunch and swam half way around, was giving out of breath, so I started to climb out. The guy in charge yelled at me to get back in. This had given me a little breath so I continued and barely made it! Anyway, my lucky break came when we went up to talk to a the guy who was supposed to determine what you were suited for. I had a deep interest in ham radio. I had been listening every spare minute before I went in the service. I had learned most of the code, but I had learned it as dots and dashes...not dits and dahs. I had a National NC-60 receiver that had a BFO that really didn’t work much. I was very persistent with the guy that I had to have something in radio. I told him that was definitely my interest. He looked at my I, N, T scores and said you did pretty well, but being a ham I am surprised you didn’t ace it. Well, I was not a ham operator. I had just told him I enjoyed listening to ham radio. That did the trick. He obviously put me down for CT school and never told me what he was putting down. When my company commander saw this at the end of boot camp, he went through the ceiling. How could Beach get this good duty. He knew CT’s rarely went to sea. My first duty station was Corry Field at Pensacola, Florida. I loved it there. I loved copying the code, although it was a challenge. I met some wonderful life long friends there. I did help set up a new chow hall in 1966 before my security clearance came in. I took my first ham test there with Terry Bachman, a ham with a 9 land call. I believe he was an instructor there. I had no trouble copying the code that he sent me, and I was able to send back to him. I passed the written test with no problem. My call arrived in June of 1966 as WB4ELI. My code instructor was a marine by the name of Gunnery Sgt Wood. He was a marine that had been in service many years. He was short and when you stood inspections in the hot sun in the mornings, he would bend over and start with your shoes and gradually bring his head up to inspect every inch of you. But, in class he liked me as he found out I had gotten a ham radio license. He would often excuse me and Walter Egan, another ham, when he was lecturing on some radio subject he thought we knew. Then, at the end of code school, I was given the change to go to T branch school. I jumped at it, as it would give me more training in electronics and radio. I am positive to this day that Gunnery Sgt Wood thought I was good “shipping over material”. The person who graduated first in class got their choice of duty stations. The top person, which wasn’t me, chose Bremerhaven, Germany. I, due to Gunnery Sgt Wood’s doing, got Bremerhaven also. I spent most of my free time at Corry Field operating WA4ECY, the ham station on base. I operated an HT-32 or 37 transmitter with a Collins 75A2 or some receiver like that. I once messed up one of the knobs on the Collins receiver, It just started slipping on me. Once, the person in charge of WA4ECY, complained about some idiot messing up the knob, lucky he didn’t find out it was me.! Then, came Bremerhaven, Germany. We landed at Rhine Maine in Jan of 1967. We were there a day or two. The guy that graduated first in class was my companion. We rode out of town on a train, proceeded to run out of money, and we were thrown off the train and had to walk back to town in the snow. My companion wanted to eat sauerkraut, so I ate a big plate, and felt very sick afterwards. When it came time to catch the train up to Bremerhaven, he was drunk. He had a hard time getting our orders out of a locker. He also was greeting Germans getting off of trains by saying, “Welcome to Bremerhaven” and we were at Frankfurt not Bremerhaven. Anyway, the train would stop every few miles, and we would roll out of bed. We got to Bremerhaven about 6 a.m. and had a much needed breakfast. I enjoyed every minute at Bremerhaven. I spent most of my time operating the ham radio station belonging to Chief Tony Spatafore. He had an HT-44/SX-117, and SB-200 combination. I got the call of DL4BM (Black Magic). I worked the world, and could tell you some stories about climbing up on that slanted tile roof to repair the inverted vee for 20 meters. I made many life long ham radio friends all over the world from that station. I got to go to London and meet G3WRU, Grahame Harding, a friend I met on the air one day when he was out at St. James Park in London. In later years, he made out extremely well by owning a security company in London, and did Lady Di’s security work. I traveled to Copenhagen, and took a trip all down through Germany into Paris and back. Also, a couple of us went to Amsterdam, and did the usual sight seeing. I loved the work there at Bremerhaven. I did everything including working a teletype from Bremerhaven down to Frankfurt. It was an exciting time, a lot of hard work, but enjoyable work. I left there in December 1968..a full two years of GREAT duty! Then, lastly I got orders to the USS OXFORD, operating in the Vietnam Combat Zone. To be honest, I was a little afraid of going on a ship. I left Spartanburg, SC with snow on the ground and wearing the hot blue uniform. After making buddies with a few other guys, we arrived in the Philippines. I can feel it now..It was like 90 something degrees, and I was wearing the blue uniform. It was almost like I was dreaming, as it was my first time in Asia. We later made it to Saigon and stayed at the infamous dirty Hotel Annapolis. My buddies and I had our bunks made by some old Vietnamese lady, and proceeded to go down the street. We wound up at a bar. I didn’t partake of the beverages, but tried to find something I could eat. When we finally got back to the Annapolis Hotel, we had a meeting, and were told to never go out on the street as you could not tell the South Vietnamese from the North Vietnamese. We were told if rounds came in during the night to pull the mattress over our body. Well, I was so tired I slept the best I had in years. That hotel was bombed a month or so later. We left there and went back to Tan Son Nhut Airbase. We flew to Rach Gia, and Can Tho. I stayed a night or two at Binh Thuy. This is were the PBR’s were repaired. I saw many of these that had holes in the frame of the fiberglass bodies that were repaired. I believe I met some of the hardest, roughest Navy men there. Well, finally we wound up at Phu Quoc, the largest island in Vietnam, and south of Cambodia. I spent some days there waiting on the USS OXFORD to arrive. When it finally appeared it was a large, looming old Liberty ship with antennas hanging everywhere imaginable. A few of us that had been traveling together rode out in a small boat, and climbed the ladder that was put over the side so we could climb up. Then, our sea bags were lifted up. I could tell you a lot about how this turned out to be my best duty. I made a lot of lifelong friends, and hit the ports of Singapore, Bangkok, Subic Bay, and Hong Kong to name a few. I loved hanging around the radio room. I would often listen to 20 meters on a DF receiver that we really never used, and I would record on an SP-600 Chris Noel, the Armed Forces Radio DJ that appeared in Girl Happy with Elvis Presley. After getting back to the US, I was playing back a tape and found I had recorded a show one Saturday morning and had recorded an army guy who had come in to do the Saturday morning show because the regular DJ had been out the night before. It turned out I had recorded,at the time an unknown Army soldier, who turned out to be Pat Sajak that you now see on Wheel of Fortune. The ship was finally decommissioned early in Japan, so I got a chance to get around Yokohama a good bit, and also a few trips to Tokyo. This has been much too long, and I will conclude by saying that I was fortunate to be a member of the Naval Security Group, and met some of the smartest guys in the world. For once, I hit it lucky and would have been wise to put in 20 years, but had a GREAT time and learned a lot. I owe a lot to amateur radio, as it opened the door to a wonderful Navy experience. I am now N4NY, and I wouldn’t trade my time as a CT for anything. It was GREAT! Oh yes, I got $50 extra in my pay per month for being in the Vietnam Combat Zone !