Member-only story
The Uses of Conspiracy
Not All Game Animals are Warm Blooded
Memoir Excerpt ©2019 Steve Russell
It was 1966, and I was over half-finished with what I still called my first Air Force hitch, still on track for a retirement pension at the ripe age of 37. I had been ordered to report to a listening station maintained by USAF Security Service north of Da Nang, hard by the DMZ. It did not appear on any map I had at hand, but Security Service — the USAF branch of the National Security Agency — was a small enough outfit with few enough assignments that none was a total mystery. Our Big Ears were so well-placed, the saying went, they picked it up if Ho Chi Minh farted in his sleep.
The work promised to be as boring as the location was exotic. I would convert the electronic intercepts to paper tape, and ship out the raw product for the rest of the conversion from Vietnamese to computer to English.
It was customary to take a leave before deploying to Vietnam, and that seemed like a good idea. I made a copy of my orders to prove I would soon be a war hero and headed first to Bristow, where I found my grandmother stoutly opposed to the Vietnam War and dismayed at my participation.
Somewhat deflated, I steered my Volkswagen in the direction of rural Arkansas, where my mother lived while commuting to work in the metropolis of Russellville…
