Was familiar with amateur radio and the MARS system. Was responsible for getting guys in my unit (including officers) calls back to the "world".  Because I had worked so hard with the MARS guys, when a job came open, the called my battalion C.O. and asked for me. 

Deployed with the 27th Engineer Battalion (Combat) in September '66 to build a base camp for the 11th ACR (Blackhorse) Because of my radio experience and knowledge of the MARS radio system, I was offered a special duty assignment to ensure that guys at the Blackhorse Base Camp would have access to the phone patches at the MARS station.  

I worked the night shift (2400-0600) at the station staffed by 4 guys each pulling a 6 hour shift 7 days a week. This was about the best shift as the bands would come up late in the evening. This turned into a pretty good assignment, as everybody who wanted to call home wanted to be your friend.  The night shift cooks (bakers) would bring over fresh cookies and cinnamon rolls along with re-combined milk (yuck!) every morning about 3am and hope for a phone call. There were 5 stations in our net, as I remember, and each station would get 5 phone patch tries and each call would last about 5 minutes.  This gave me plenty of time to check out the mess hall and also go and get the officers and em's scheduled up to talk to talk to their wives and girlfriend and folks.  I will say it did make me a popular and well known guy amongst the troops. Very well.  This was something that I knew well and was very proficient at.  So in addition to a good job that I knew was helping the troop morale it allowed me to put my skills to work at something I truly enjoyed.

One unforgettable story was taking a KWM2 and a 30l1 along with a long wire ant. To the boonies for some of the "advisors" with the 52nd ARVN Ranger unit to call "Mama" 

Made my tour very rewarding and valuable to the guys I was able to connect to their families. 

JOHN R (J.R.) KENNEDY E-4, 2/67 – 3/68 MACV TEAM 87 XUAN LOC, RVN