A Collins S/Line Station shortwave system, circa 1958, used throughout the world for military communications. From collinsmuseum.com

Submitted by Paul Scipione, Geneseo

I spent Christmas day 1969 in Vietnam, in the patient ward at 326th Med at Camp Eagle, the main base camp of the 101st Airborne Division, near Hue City.

I was waiting to chopper out to the hospital ship USS Repose for surgery to repair a deviated septum.

The other patients and I were still excited from having seen the Bob Hope Show that morning from the front row of a crude amphitheatre filled with more than 15,000 homesick GIs, happy to let Bob Hope, Connie Stevens, the sexy Gold Diggers and Les Brown and his Band Renowned let us temporarily forget about the war.

At dawn the next day, several of my ward mates and I were choppered out to the Repose, anchored five miles offshore in the South China Sea.

I was handed a dark blue patient gown and was in surgery within 30 minutes. When I came out of the anesthesia, the doc told me that the surgery had gone “A-OK. You can breathe again, sergeant.”

A few hours later, two Navy doctors strode into the ward and announced that there had been a major firefight near Quang Tri. We had to be shipped out to make room for the latest wave of GI casualties.

By dinner chow we were already back to the ward at 326th Med. We all groused how much better the Navy chow had been than what the Army served up.

“Okay, guys, this is the plan,” whispered the lanky Spec5 from Texas, drawing the four of us into a tight circle to shield our conspiracy. “It’s time to call home. As soon as the medic leaves, we’ll stuff pillows under our blankets an’ duck out the back door an’ down the hill to the MARS station.”

The plan sounded fine, except that two of the guys were in casts and on crutches, the Texan was bent over from surgery to remove shrapnel from his intestines, and I could barely see around the bandages on my face.

We headed down the hill for AB8AAE, the MARS station operated by the 501st Signal Battalion. Between the four of us, we had the equivalent of one working body.

AB8AAE wasn’t particularly impressive from the outside, just a typical plywood-and-screen hooch, up a few feet off the muddy ground, with a tin roof. A single wire antenna stretched from a window to a short telephone pole about 75 feet away.

“How long a wait will we have?” I asked the station operators. The four of us were hoping that we could all call home and get back to the medical ward before the medics checked our beds or woke us for pain meds.

“Can’t estimate that exactly,” a Spec4 hollered out from behind a crude wooden table covered with Collins transmitters, receivers and linear amplifiers. “Propagation ain’t so hot and we share the frequency with other stations.”

We worried that the only thing we really wished for on Christmas would elude us. But as the four of us took our places in a line of GIs that snaked completely around the inside walls of the radio hooch, an amazing thing happened.

One by one, other Screaming Eagles began giving up their places. “We can always come back tomorrow night. Looks like you guys need a call home more than we do. Merry Christmas, Airborne.”

We were grateful for the generosity of our fellow GIs. After about an hour wait, I entered the “phone booth,” a makeshift plywood enclosure with an Army telephone on a plywood shelf and an old stool to sit on.

I wondered if my wife and I would be able to recognize each other’s voices over the 8,000+ mile shortwave connection.

“Okay, sarge,” the MARS operator explained to me. “The usual time limit is three minutes, but you guys from the hospital get five. Don’t forget to say “over” to mark the end of your side of the conversation. And don’t mention any military stuff.”

I was heartbroken when there was no answer at my wife’s number. The MARS operator then shifted to my parent’s number as a backup. Wow, I immediately recognized my Dad’s voice on the other end. “Dad, how are you and Mom? Did you have a nice Christmas? Over.”

“What’s t-h-a-t? I can’t quite make out who’s talking. Is this call really coming from Vietnam? Over.”

“Yes, Dad, it’s really me. Merry Christmas from the land of monsoons and rice paddies. Over.”

“I – I’m still kinda confused at this end,” I heard my Dad say in frustration. “If it’s really you, Paul, this is your father, Alfred Scipione of Lewiston, New York, talking. Over.”

When my Dad heard my laugh from 8,000 miles away, he knew it was really me. We were soon conversing like pros, as the MARS operators on both sides of the world flipped their send and receive switches.

After I talked with my parents and hung up, tears filled my eyes. Some wonderful ham radio operators had volunteered their time and stations to give us a touch of home.

I stood in line another hour, this time managing to reach my wife Linda, who had been celebrating Christmas at her older sister’s. “Hi, Babes. Love ya, Babes.” The 8,000 miles instantly disappeared.

Around 2 a.m. our foursome finally stumbled out of AB8AAE and limped back up the hill to 326th Med and our cold bunks. I looked up at the starry sky and smiled with joy, reliving every word of my two miraculous Christmas calls home. It is still a Christmas I treasure after all these years.

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Volunteer MARS operators on both sides of the Pacific ran more than 2.5 million phone patches and handled 1+ million MARSgrams during the Vietnam War. By far the busiest stateside MARS station was AFA7UGA, located in the Arizona home of Sen. Barry Goldwater, Republican presidential candidate in 1964.

In 1994, Sen. Goldwater wrote the Foreword to Paul Scipione’s book – MARS: Calling Back to ‘The World’ From Vietnam (The Official History of Military Affiliate Radio System Operations During the Vietnam War).

Paul A. Scipione was National Public Relations Director of Army MARS during Operations Desert Shield & Desert Storm (1990-91) and personally ran more than a thousand phone patches for the troops from AA2USA at Fort Monmouth, NJ. Retired from a full professorship at Montclair State University since 2004, Dr. Scipione (ham radio callsign AA2AV) is now Professor Emeritus of Business and Director of the Survey/Research Center at his alma mater, SUNY Geneseo.

Tagged as: Christmas, veterans