Billy Bolin

E5 10/68 - 6/69

A Funny Story 

One evening while logged into the In-country net for the daily scrimmage of sending MARS Gram traffic and receiving anything someone else might have for us the following incident took place. There was a Seabee in our Battalion who had recently found out that his fiancée at home was pregnant.  He brought in an email that read: “I need a notarized statement from you stating that I was the one, the only one who had intercourse with you, thus resulting in your pregnancy”.  I was told later on that his intentions were to possibly get married via the MARS system. Not being sure that the word “intercourse” was allowable as a word you could send over the radio, I first informed the net control station in DaNang that I had a priority message but it had a word that I was not sure about sending over the radio.  I believe it was Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant Rick Kiter who was the man in control of the net and he told me to go ahead and give him the word that was in question.  I did and  he stated that it was in the dictionary so therefore it was permissible to send it in a radio transmission. After sending the message and receiving a “Roger” from N0EFY, a moment of silence followed and then a voice broke the silence with the words, “Hey, how about giving us that address one more time”.  

Another "not so funny" story.

We received a MARS gram one afternoon to a man in the Battalion from his wife in Gulfport, MS. and it just read, "call home ASAP, urgent family matter, very important." When I tried to locate him I found out he was on R & R in another country and would not be back for another week.  I put it aside to give to him when he returned and during the next 5 days we received 2 more exactly like the first one.  When he returned, I gave the grams to him and tried to answer his very concerned questions as to exactly what a MARS gram was and how it got there.  He even asked me what was wrong at his home and of course I had no idea.  We had airtime scheduled with a gateway in Hawaii that afternoon so I told him to come down to the station at 1400 and he would be at the top of the list.  We got a call through to his home, and the operator in Hawaii came back and announced that his son was on the phone but the wife was at the club on the base.  The time in Gulfport, MS. was the middle of the night.  He had a rather stunned look on his face when he could not get the son to tell him anything except that he needed to call back when Mom was there.  I assured him we would try again that night with N0RTY in Port Hueneme, CA and he would again be the top of the list.  We got his call through and this time the wife was at home.  After starting the conversation with his, "hi baby, I love you and I can't imagine what the problem could be, I got these MARS grams that said urgent family matter and Mike wouldn't tell me anything when I called this afternoon so I am worried to death, what is going on there? Over." Her reply was, "I just want to know one thing; when you went on R & R this time did you stay at a "certain" hotel or did you stay at "such and such" street?"  He looked like he had seen a ghost.  After he left for Vietnam for his second tour, a letter from a woman he spent a week with on R & R from his first deployment had somehow made its way from the battalion  headquarters on the base to his home mailbox. Believe me, he was in deep trouble. 

One more story: 

I had a gentleman come in and call his XYL one day and the conversation got around to money. She wanted him to send her more than he had been and he tried desperately to explain to her that there was no more to send. Finally after quite a lot of arguing back and forth she informed him that it was OK if he didn't send any because (she called a male name) would take care of her, she didn't need his money.  After ending the call, he came through the door where I was at and just started crying profusely stating that he just knew she was running around on him and wanting me to assure him that she wasn't.  What could I say?  

One final story: 

We received a call from an Army Captain one afternoon asking if it would be possible for him to use the MARS station to call his wife.  I told him he certainly could and that night around 2300 he showed up at the door of the station.  Since he was an officer I felt like he and the enlisted men waiting in the waiting area would all be more comfortable if he waited inside rather than out where they were.  I asked him if he would like to wait inside.  He came in and sat for a couple of hours before getting his call through. During that time I had some conversation with him in which he asked me several questions about my family, my civilian life and things in general.  I didn't know it at the time but he was pretty impressed with the MARS station and felt that we really were trying hard to get these calls through for him and the others.  This was true but no different from any other night.  When he left he shook my hand and told me how grateful he was for our efforts and asked the name of my Commanding Officer.  A couple days later my CO called me into his office (big scare!) and presented me with a nice letter of commendation for the efforts "above and beyond the call of duty" we put in to get his call through. I had told him that my wife back home was expecting our first child and he showed interest in this, being a family man himself.  When he left that night, the last thing he said was, "next time I see you I'll buy you a beer."  The next week someone knocked on the door of the MARS station and when I opened it there was an Army Sergeant standing there with a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer in his hand and an envelope. He said he was looking for Petty Officer Bolin. I told him I was Bolin and he handed me the beer and told me who it was from.  Inside the envelope was a very nice note again thanking us for our efforts and asking me to keep him posted on the birth of my baby.  He closed it by saying, "enjoy your beer".  At Christmas time our station  received a nice goodies package from his wife with a really nice thank you note. 

My experience in the MARS system was one of the highlights of my lifetime.  It was very rewarding in many ways because you realized you were doing something that was a real morale booster to people who very much needed that at the time. On my first deployment I was not associated with MARS and my first child died while I was on that deployment.  When I returned to Vietnam on the second tour where I worked in MARS, my wife was pregnant with our second child.  Being a part of MARS gave me a daily access to information from her as to how things were going with the pregnancy.  I did not take advantage of anyone else by calling more than I should have but any time we had dead time with nobody to call I would call and talk to her.      Back to top

Michael Hyneman

CE3 7/68 - 4/69

Back to top