Mark Beyer, CTT2, 1975-1979 In the fall of 1974 my best friend, Larry, and I decided to join the Navy on the "buddy program" as shore patrol. I started doing the investigative work on enlisting and found out that you couldn't join the shore patrol until you were an E-6. The Navy had marines to do the work that the other services used junior enlistees for. Neither of us wanted to join the marines and so Larry dropped out of the plan. During my talks with the recruiter he had me take a couple of tests to see where I might be best suited to work in the Navy. When I went back to talk to him about the results he said that I really had the qualifications and temperament to either be a baker or a CT. When I asked him what a CT was and did he said he didn't know and the book that gave detailed descriptions of all the rates was barely half a page in size and didn't really say anything. I decided that sounded a whole lot more interesting than being a baker. He had me take the morse code test and I scored really well on it. He said that I should probably go in as a T or R brancher as both worked with morse code. I wasn't sure which one I wanted to do so he put me down as a CT T/R with the final decision to be made at school. I convinced my parents (I was still only 17) that I wanted to do this and we all signed the dotted line. Two weeks after graduating high school in 1975 I was sworn in at the recruiting center in Portland, OR and headed for the airport to go to San Diego for boot camp. While I was in the airport waiting for the flight to leave I was paged to the "white phone". When I picked it up it was my friend Larry telling me not to leave until he got there as he had something to tell me. I told him I would tell the pilot not to leave until Larry got there. He called me a smartass and hung up. About 30 minutes later he arrived at the airport to tell me that he had joined the Marines and was going to be in the Marines Drum and Bugle Corp. I asked if he had that in writing and he said no. Needless to say he didn't get in the Drum and Bugle Corp. He swallowed it all - hook, line and sinker. When I got to Pensacola there were three of us checking in that were T/R branchers. We were waiting for the admin people to decide what to do with us when a Chief came out, pointed at the other two and said they were R branchers and pointed at me and said I was a T brancher. He then told me I would be in wideband. I said "aye aye sir" (still fresh out of boot camp), he laughed and pointed me in the right direction. I struggled through the morse code part of school (good thing I didn't get to be an R brancher) but did really well in wideband. I made some great friends there...Steve (RIP) and Phyllis Moberg, Joe Gallagher, Gary Brock, Marti Fort, Vicki Pitonak, Paul Leo and Ralph Neufeld. While I was in my A school they explained how the dream sheets worked and I realized that if I put in for isolated duty as a first choice I would get it and then my first choice from there would be a really good place. I selected Adak and Iceland and was sent to Adak. I absolutely loved working on Adak, it was such a beautiful place and there was a lot to do if you wanted to. I had the best superivisor on Adak. He was Charlie Victory (RIP) and he knew so much about wideband and he was a great trainer. One thing I learned early on was not to make an error, as that really set Charlie off. He also loved to play chess and Paul Leo ended up playing a lot of chess with Charlie on eves and mids. At one point I noticed that Charlie had been in for over 16 years and he still had red stripes on his uniform and not gold. I asked him (very carefully) about this and he told me that in the Navy you had to keep moving up. But he felt his best place to be was as a watch supervisor, he really didn't want to be a chief until just before he retired. So, he would take all the tests and would get promoted to Chief and then would go out to celebrate his new stripe, get drunk and punch somebody out just so they would bust him back to first class and leave him as a supervisor. I know it worked a couple of times for him. He did retire as a Chief and the passed away just a few years ago in Louisiana. After Adak I went to Wahiawa, HI and got into a good watch section there. These guys weren't there to just make the time pass. They really were interested in improving their times and doing an all around good job. It was a fun section headed up by Don Beeman. JR King was also in the section and he made the best coleslaw I have ever tasted. I got married while I was in Hawaii and we'll celebrate 32 years later this year. I got out of the Navy after 4 years and look back fondly on the places I went and the people I met. Thanks everybody. Mark Beyer CTT2