Tom Shirley, CTRC, USN Ret., 1962 – 1985 How I Became a Communications/Cryptologic Technician (CT) I was 12 years old the summer of 1956 when my older brother Bill graduated from high school in our hometown of Altus, Arkansas. The Arkansas state motto was then, “Land of Opportunity,” but if there was an opportunity within 500 miles of Altus it eluded most graduating seniors. That’s why, immediately on graduating, Bill and a couple of his classmates joined the Navy. One of these classmates was a guy named Junior Detherage. The only person who called Junior Detherage ‘Junior’ was his mother. Everyone else called him ‘Junebug.’ To say Junebug Detherage was a cool guy seriously understates his extreme coolness. He was, hands down, the coolest guy in any high school, ever. And he was cool without even trying. He was good looking, with chiseled features, dark, piercing eyes and ‘Tony Curtis’ hair, one of those guys all the girls loved and all the guys wanted to be. He was effortlessly good at everything he did. He was quiet, unassuming, a skilled athlete and a competent student. But the real testament to Junebug’s coolness was that he was probably the only guy on the face of the earth who could go through life with a nickname dippy as ‘Junebug’ and still be cool. Anyway, my brother Bill and his friends went off to Navy boot camp at Great Lakes, Illinois, returning at the end of summer in their snazzy uniforms. I was so focused on Bill that I didn’t hear what Junebug and the others would be doing in the Navy. Bill said he was going to a Navy school to learn to be an IC (Interior Communications) technician, and he did. Meanwhile I slogged my way through junior high school, missing my brother Bill, writing letters to him almost daily, a few of which he actually answered, telling me about the exotic ports his ship visited and his work on a complex and mysterious shipboard device called a ‘gyrocompass.’ His letters made me yearn to break away from my one-horse hometown of Altus, Arkansas, and get out there and see the world. Time dragged on to September 1961, when I began my senior year of high school. It was the fall of the year and the county fair was in progress. Walking through the crowded fairgrounds I was surprised to meet Junebug Detherage. I hadn’t seen Junebug or thought about him in years, and suddenly here he was, cooler than ever. He was out of the Navy now, he said. He’d lost touch with my brother Bill long ago and was eager to hear any news of him. We were strolling together and talking when we came upon an eye-catching communications exhibit someone had set up for the fair. I don’t recall whether it was a military service or an Amateur Radio club, but there were radios, power supplies, antennas, microphones, and a Morse code key. The guys manning the exhibit invited people to talk over the radio, and some did, all of them awkwardly. Junebug asked if he could try the Morse code key, was told okay, and he began skillfully tapping out code, ‘talking’ back and forth with someone distant and unseen. I was deeply impressed that he could communicate by means of the beeping sounds he made with the code key. When he finished his turn at the key, we resumed our stroll and I asked how anyone could make sense of those beeps. He told me he’d been a Radioman in the Navy, and he briefly described the code in a way that made me see it could be learned. That did it; my imagination was captured. I knew that, after graduation, I would join the Navy and become a Radioman, just like Junebug Detherage. As graduation approached I spoke to recruiters from all the services, and came away with a vaguely developed plan: I would serve one Navy enlistment and earn G.I. Bill benefits, which the recruiters had convinced me would pay for college while I lived in a dormitory, attended wild frat house parties, and drove a new Corvette. I became more eager than ever to shake the dust of Altus, Arkansas from my shoes. In May 1962, ten days short of my 18th birthday, I graduated and joined the Navy, attending boot camp at Great Lakes. By now my brother Bill was stationed aboard the USS Antietam, the aircraft carrier on which Navy student pilots trained, home-ported at Pensacola, Florida. Bill and I exchanged letters agreeing that I would try getting ‘brother duty’ with him aboard the Antietam. By now Bill had married; he and his wife lived off base in Pensacola. His house, he wrote, was party-central where all his buddies and their wives and girlfriends gathered to drink beer and whoop it up. Man, it was gonna be a blast! But first, I thought, I must resolve this small matter of becoming a Radioman. When my boot company underwent Classification, the Navy determined I had something of a knack for Morse code, the not-so-rare human trait of being able to differentiate between a 'dit' and a 'dah,’ and pretty much the only discernible aptitude I possessed. The surprising thing was that my Classification petty officer, instead of focusing on what the Navy needed from me, made an actual effort to get me what I wanted. But, the petty officer explained, I couldn’t get both ‘brother duty’ and Radioman school. It just didn’t work that way, he said. So which would it be? I weighed the question and decided I wanted more to be a Radioman like Junebug Detherage than to be aboard the Antietam with my brother. Then, on a subsequent visit to Classification, came happy news; the very helpful petty officer said he’d found a way for me to get a little of the two things I wanted, sort of; I could (1) be stationed with my brother, sort of, and (2) get Radioman school, sort of. This, it turned out, meant I could go to CT School, which was “just like Radioman school,” in Pensacola where the Antietam was home ported. I was ecstatic and very grateful, then and now, to that diligent petty officer, the only person I encountered in boot camp who treated me with a measure of kindness and consideration. In late August 1962 my company finished boot camp. Instead of going home to Altus for boot leave I headed for Pensacola and my brother’s house. Bill’s wife was there but he was aboard the Antietam. So I reported to Naval Communications Training Command where I was assigned to ‘X-Division,’ working with other future students. X-Division morning muster was held in a greasy motor pool. Our leader was an even greasier 3rd class petty officer who was completely disorganized and didn’t know one bugle call from another, to the extent that he would snap to attention and salute ‘Chow Call,’ thinking it was ‘Colors.’ It took him until mid-morning each day to give us our assignments cleaning barracks, cutting grass, and working in the galley. In a few days the Antietam returned and the partying began, just as Bill had promised. At every opportunity I joined Bill and his shipmates; we burned burgers over charcoal, drank beer, and otherwise had a real good time. With all the partying, the thought that I would soon start school was not uppermost in my mind. Then one Friday at X-Division morning muster a chief petty officer showed up, stepping carefully in his spit-shined shoes across the greasy floor of the motor pool. The chief called out some names that included mine, and announced that we would begin school on Monday. The chief then collected our liberty cards, saying liberty was suspended for us, as a precaution against our being unprepared for the first day school due to any unwise off-base activities on our part. It was probably a good plan but in my case it didn’t work. I awakened Sunday morning with my head aching, puking until nothing was left but dry heaves. It felt like the worst hangover ever, but since I’d been behaving myself, it had to be a non-hangover infirmity. Guys in the barracks conducted medical examinations and agreed that my eyes were “real sunk-in,” but debated whether my skin was “sorta greenish” or “kinda yellow.” I staggered to sickbay Sunday afternoon; the duty corpsman administered Pepto Bismol and arranged for me to go to the hospital on Mainside the following morning, Monday, the first day of school. I was feeling better Monday, but the Mainside doc said I might still be carrying “a touch of flu or something, who knows, I’ve seen worse.” He told me to just take it easy and issued me a 3-day ‘no duty’ chit, which resulted in my missing the first three days of school. The same chief I’d seen that past Friday came to the barracks to check on me. Luckily I had that no-duty chit to show him. Also my eyes were still adequately sunk-in and my skin still sufficiently greenish-yellow to convince him I really was sick. The chief said missing the first day of school, much less the first three days, just wouldn’t do. He’d put me in ‘GSBs,’ he said, until the next class formed, at which time he’d come get me and I would join that class. You just hang loose, he said. So I hung loose, wondering what ‘GSBs’ might be. I recovered from my illness, but in the leisure of my ‘no duty’ status I had time to develop another malady: homesickness. I began yearning to see my old hometown and the friends I’d left behind, wondering what they were doing, imagining them having all the fun and excitement in the world while I was stuck in boring Pensacola. GSBs turned out to be Graduate Stand-bys, a group of students who’d finished their first few weeks of school but whose security clearances hadn’t come in. Without at least an interim clearance they couldn’t continue classes, so they worked in GSBs and waited. GSBs was somewhat like X-Division, except that we mustered under blue skies alongside ranks of squared-away students and their instructors, flags snapping in the breeze, John Philip Sousa playing over the PA system. GSBs had better work assignments than X-Division, too. We cleaned the enlisted men’s club, the Chiefs’ Club, and the Officers’ Club, with free access to fountain soft drinks and snacks. In a miserable fog of homesickness I did moderate amounts of work and slurped lots of sugary soft drinks while gnawing on salty, fat-laden snacks. Then one morning at muster I saw a dozen or so well-turned-out young sailors being screamed at by a chief trying to herd them into ranks. Somebody said, “A new class was forming.” I expected the chief to come get me and put me in the new class, but he did not. That was okay with me. At some point in my brief Navy experience I’d lost the desire to learn Morse code and be like Junebug Detherage. I’d even gone so far as to develop an ill formed, secret plan to stay in GSBs until my enlistment expired, then cruise on out in my future GI Bill-funded Corvette for the dorm, the frat house, and college. My plan seemed to be working. New classes kept forming every couple of weeks or so, and the chief kept not coming to get me. So I kept hanging loose, just as the chief had told me to do. Then one day the chief called me into his office and, with a big smile, congratulated me on my final clearance being approved. He asked if I was ready to “start back to school.” My heart sank. I said I guess so, except you might remember, Chief, I’ve never actually started school yet. His smile fell away. He said, “WHAT?!” I reminded him he’d told me to ‘hang loose.’ I carefully omitted mentioning my secret plan for hanging loose throughout my enlistment. The chief said “WHAT?!” a few more times, until he realized that he’d put me in GSBs and forgotten about me. Why the HELL, he demanded, hadn’t I SAID something? I was hanging loose, like you said, I said. He shook his head ruefully and noted that I must be the dumbest S.O.B. ever to set foot on the United States Naval Communications Training Command. He was probably right, on many levels, although not for the reasons he thought. But the jig, as they say, was up. The following Monday I began classes in the ‘Big Room,’ with Class 10-Bravo of the year 1962. I might have been the only student in campus history who began screaming, “Di-DAH! - ALFA!” while holding a final security clearance. The first few weeks of school elapsed, with me just squeaking by, my concentration fixed less on school than on the next party at my brother’s house. Then, in December, we were all given Christmas leave. I boarded a Greyhound for Altus, eager to get home and reacquaint myself with my old friends and join in on all the fun and excitement Altus, Arkansas had to offer. I was home about five minutes when I began remembering why I’d left in the first place. Nothing had changed, except in my mind, about my hometown. It was still home and I still loved it, but it was still the dull, dead-end place I’d wanted to escape for so long. Worse, the people seemed to be carrying on the same conversation as when I’d left. I couldn’t wait to get back to Pensacola and start knuckling down in CT school. When I did return to Pensacola, the USS Lexington had relieved the USS Antietam and my brother was gone. In the absence of parties, and with my new determination to succeed, I began doing much better in school. My class graduated in April 1963 and I was selected to immediately attend a 6-week radio direction finding (DF) school, Class 07-DF of 1963. Our DF class graduated in late May 1963 and I got orders to Naval Security Group Activity Edzell, Scotland. In Scotland I met and married my lovely bride, Rhoda, who has accompanied and supported me over a 23-year Navy career followed by a second, 22-year career with the Federal Communications Commission. Rhoda and I celebrated our 44th anniversary in February 2009. We have two beautiful daughters and a granddaughter, all of whom we’re very proud. We are now fully retired and thoroughly enjoying life near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I’ve never lived in a dorm, attended a frat house party, or gone to college. I like my diesel GMC truck and wouldn’t have a Corvette if you gave it to me. Some years ago I was talking to my very good friend and FCC workmate Mike Landis, whose ‘How I Became a CT’ story appears among these listings. Mike and I were relaxing through one of our grotesquely extended, federal employee-length lunches, and instead of engaging in our usual banter about our CT days, we found ourselves in a profound discussion about how the people we encounter and the youthful decisions we make – and the decisions we have thrust upon us – can set the course for an entire lifetime. In my case, if not for Junebug Detherage I never would have developed an interest in learning Morse code. If not for ‘fiddling’ my assignment to GSBs, I would have likely graduated from CT school at an earlier date and got orders somewhere other than Scotland, thus missing the chance for meeting the girl I married. If I’d not become a CT I would never have developed the communications background leading to my career with the FCC. There are endless examples, but I’m sure you see the point. Without question the best decision I ever made was joining the Navy, which led to my stumbling across the extreme good fortune of becoming a CT. On a couple of occasions a person learning of my Navy career has said, “You served your country.” Well, okay, I’ll acknowledge that, and I appreciate it; thank you. But the truth is, and I believe this is true for many of us: my country has served me a hell of a lot better than I ever served it. Tom Shirley Carroll Valley, Pennsylvania June 22, 2009