I spent my off time at training bases, Ft. Sill, Oklahoma & Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, running patches at the MARS stations at those posts.  I had a general class Amateur Radio Operators license (WA6FAL) at the time. While at Ft. Huachuca I could sometimes run patches with the AB8 stations in Vietnam. When conditions were not good enough to run calls while talking with the guys, I told them most likely I was headed to RVN & did they need a MARS operator?  They gave me phone numbers at Bien Hoa and Cam Ranh Bay. About three days after arriving in country, while still behind the tall fence intended to discourage nervous newbies, I asked one of the NCO's if he would let me use a phone, that I had a phone number and a skill. A thoughful expression came over his face & he said "Yeah a guy has got to take care of himself, go through that door over there." I called the number and in a couple of hours had orders to report to a major. He gave me a shit eating grin and said "Boy do we have a good place for you". In a day or so I arrived at Phu Loi and started right in working at AB8AAL.  I had arrived after the station was rebuilt from damage from a rocket attack.  I was replacing SP4 Richard Page, who died in the attack.

Phu Loi ended up being relatively peaceful after I arrived. I recall a couple of rocket attacks & remember watching one going overhead & the screwy spiral path it made through the sky. Most of the calls were routed to various units around the post through the manual telephone switchboard. During daylight hours the switchboard was operated by young Vietnamese women and the service was excellent. We became friends with a couple of them & I am sure they took good care of us and many calls were successful because they efficiently connected us to the guys whose calls were coming up.  At night time the switchboard service by GI's was just about non-existent.    I recall getting one stoned switchboard operator at night & how impossible it was to talk with him, he was in the ozone. Our hardest working stateside contacts were A6VVM, Jack Connell in San Diego and A7ZT, George Criteser in Carson City, Nevada.

I recall a PFC Pie, a cook with a 155 artillery unit that camped near the station for a couple of weeks. The smile on his face when he walked out of that phone booth will always stick with me.

I reflect quite often on how fortunate I am to have done MARS work in Vietnam and on the fact that the guy I replaced was "The best friend I never met".

I was among the last guys at Phu Loi Base Camp when it was being turned over to the ARVN. Workers from PA&E took down the log periodic antenna about a week before we were to leave. I calculated a half wave dipole for 14 MHz and installed it as an inverted vee and we were able to run patches to the "world" on that for that last week of existence of AB8AAL.

Lewis Downey  AB8AAL - August 1971 to April 1972

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