family for dinner and again at Foremans home.

I've read some of your web pages and am sorry to hear of your loss in France.

I recently got in touch with Don Fiskewold,

another KO-6 guy from Orleans. He is now in Blaine, MN.

Have you heard from any other of the KO-6 guys?

Ken XXXXX

Aliquippa, PA

Reply

Dear XXXXXX

I just read your note. I am very excited about your note. I remember the sgt, a rather husky guy with a walrus mustache. Do you remember him? After he left France he was assigned to the OCDM in VA which was located at Camp Crystal, one of the many places I was stationed to, which also served as the alternative White House. Foreman I remember well. I have his picture and was just looking at it the other day. His wife and my wife and I went out on May Day and we were chased by protesters with tire irons and pipes and just about escaped with our lives. Also while we were there I was shot at with my other young son in the car and CID looked into it. They really wanted us out of France (g).

When I got back to the states I was assigned to the Pentagon and that last a few years but Jane and I had marital problems because of the loss of our son - or at least that was what we attributed it to though I think we were just young. I got into a little trouble when I got into a fight with the folks she left me to stay with and ended up putting the guy in the hospital and I ended up being hauled way by MPs. I didn't exactly lose my clearance, but while waiting disposition on it, I ended up over at a base in VA where the CO warned me not to see my wife again. Yea, right, I was really going to listen to him on that. To make a long story short she and I got back together and I was offered the opportunity not to reup or stay on and end up overseas. That would have cost me my marriage and probably worse in Vietnam. I was already involved at the War Room handling crypt communications with Hanoi but I took the easy way out and took the discharge which to this day I regret. I ended up in real estate, developing property and with eventually with my own office. I made money but gave a lot of it away when I got sick before I figured out the VA would treat me for nothing. I had brain surgery and have been going to the VA ever since (almost 20 years).

And my marriage has lasted 51 years (g) so maybe it was all worth it, but I can't deny I really missed the service. I did become very active in veterans organizations and was the commander of the JWV and an active member of the American Legion. I also volunteered a lot of time at the VA.

Now I live on almost 10 acres in the country and love my waning years (g).

So KEN your name rings a bell. I wish I could put the face to the name. Got a picture?

Tell me about yourself.

McCauley was the name of the sgt.

Hank Roth

I received a another letter describing his very full and wonderful career with the army. It was really good to hear from him. It was a great surprise. Over the years I have heard from friends like this and from the children of friends and it has always been a pleasure. I won't post anything personal from Ken's letter here; I'll only use his first name because I would not want to violate his privacy so his identity will be protected, but I will provide an excerpt of his letter and my follow-up letter back to him and it does disclose some private things about me but at my age, what the fuck!

His reply to my letter

Hi Hank,

The other pictures [not included here] I a took a a couple weeks back at the NSA Cryptologic Museum in Fort Meade MD. They only have the one key drive unit along with a picture of the KO-6. I was surprised that they even had that much. They also have many other voice and TTY encryption devices, all unclassified now.

After France, I was with the Army Air defence Command, 2 years at McChord AFB and 2 Years at NORAD Hq in Colorado Springs. While at McChord I met and married Mary Lou Vaught, sister of one of my fellow crypto techs from Michigan. Then went to Vietman for a year. After that, 2 years instructing the KY3 and KG13 at Ft Monmouth. Then 3 years in Pama Canal Zone, 2 years at Fort Meade MD, a year in Korea, a couple years in Ft huachuca Arizone, 2 years in Iran with the embassy (I had my wife, son and daughter there and we left when the trouble started, got out before the Shaw left). Then my last assignment was as First Sgt at Ft Ritchie Md with CEEIA. Stayed in almost 23 years, was up for E9 but next assignment was a year unaccompanied in Korea si I decided it was time to get out while I was still young enough to get a good job.

After leaving the Army we moved to Pittsburgh PA in 1981. I worked for RCA, ITT and instructed at a tech school. Went back to government work with the IRS in 87 and stayed there building and running computer networks until I retired in 2003 as a GS13 IT Speciaist. The IRS job was fun, I traveled all over the country and went to a lot of schools, Cisco and Microsoft conferences. Mary Lou traveld with me on many trips and loved it.

I've been in touch with Don Fiskewold. He is in Mn. After Orleans, Bob Pittman and I were both with NORAD. He left in 1964 for Norway. I aven't seen or heard from any other of the Orleans guys, except I did run into SP5 Cotton about 10 years later in Panama, he and both were E7's then.

I will be 68 next month. Last few years, Ive been retired and do an occasional service call or install on cumputer networks just to keep in practice.

Ken

My second letter to my old friend

Those pictures were great. Thank you so much.

I envy you. I always had the wanderlust and I missed that part of not being in the army. I got out, went to South Florida and with the G.I. Bill got my degree in law but worked as a real estate broker and developer and while it was good financially, I have always missed the army. If I could do it again I would have stayed. Jane's dad was in the army 33 years. And it seems it ended with me. My kids had other ideas. My son John is in Madrid this week. I don't know if you remember I had two of my children there? John is a designer and works on movies and other theatrical productions. That is what he is doing there. My daughter works for the blood bank as the coordinator of blood collection. And I'm retired from real estate (and a few other things along the way). And, we have another son who was born after we got out. He is 44 now and he has cerebral palsy. He uses a wheelchair and lives at home so we're pretty busy taking care of him and the 4 dogs. [g]

I was really impressed with where you have been and done. AND I'm so glad you contacted me.

By the way, I knew Pittman too. He was with me at the White House. BUT I would really like to know what happened to McCauley. Don't you remember him? And I wonder what happened to Foreman and his wife? I really liked them.

I use to stay in touch with some of the guys I worked with but many of them have now died and I'm no longer the youngest one though I use to be (g).

Thanks for the pictures. They're great and thanks for writing to me.

Hank

My third letter

Subject: Hi Friend

It was very late when I read your mail and answered it. The time stamp is in CDT time and I'm on the East Coast so you have some idea how little I sleep. Actually I was watching television with my son, Rick, until late and that's when I checked the mail. I loved reading about all your assignments. As I recall Ken you were not planning on making it a career when I knew you. I don't think so anyway, but who wouldn't want to stay in with the kind of job we had? It was cushy and it was fun and important.

My son, who died; also named Richard, was the result of an automobile accident - but you probably read that. It was devastating. My wife and I could not speak of it. And it led to some tension between us and the Foremans at the time also because they were not helpful in our grief. I can't even remember his first name now. But he came to me to borrow money and I didn't have it or something but the point was it was just very bad timing. We never saw each other after that and I had orders cut to return with the body to the states. He was buried in Beverly, NJ at the national cemetery there. Then I was assigned to the war room in the Pentagon working for the Chiefs of Staff. That was a great job. I also got picked for helicopter school, would you believe it? It was not far and I checked in there (somewhere in MD, I think) and I was put through a battery of physical tests and as much as they tried to get me to pass the medicals I could not see well enough and they would not take me with corrected vision - so I was sent back to the Pentagon. My boss was a bit miffed because he didn't want me to leave anyway. I was set until I fucked up.

My wife and I never spoke about the baby. She was driving and although I didn't blame her I held my dead baby in my arms and it was a pychological shock which therapy might have been useful for, for both of us. Instead she moved in with this family she knew. She was working as a bar maid and the owner set it up. I suspected some hanky panky going on, but found out later he was cheating on his wife with one of the other girls and apparently he was just trying to help. I found out where Jane was staying, and broke in and took the kids and then went after the owner of the bar who was there with the family in their home. I made the mistake of jumping through the window, breaking it and then breaking the other person's face and the owner of the bar pulled a gun on me and my wife ran out the kitchen and I didn't see her after that until we reconciled. I was dumb enough to take him on gun and all but by about that time the police broke in and put us both in the wagon. Then the MPs came for me. What a stupid end of a perfectly wonderful career. SO, you see why I feel like I really screwed it up. ALL except for Jane. I took her up to PA (we were living in VA) to where I put the kids, with my uncle and aunt - and on the way we made up and have been together ever since. I still can't believe we survived all that, but it has been 51 years and I have no doubt if we would live enough it would be another 51. I was out of control - which incidentally is why my parents sent me away to military school before I joined the army. AND it took a long time for me to settle down and fly right, as they say. I know I wasn't the first person to be really stupid like that, but it happened and I was and I regret it.

Enough of that. I wonder about Pittman. He was a cool guy; very good with a gun. He was on the army shooting team you know. Or maybe you didn't know? Foreman was a good friend too and I always gravitated towards black people because as a Jew I felt a kinship with them. My nanny (yep, I had one) raised me and I was thrown out of a lot of places with my black friends as a kid - for being with them and also for being Jewish. But that is an old story. Except to mention the best man at my wedding was a black guy, my bunk mate (he was the bottom bunk so we didn't actually share the same bunk [grin] and I remember once getting so drunk I puked on him from the top bunk and he still forgave me [g]. He was a good guy.

I remember all the times I got time off and would go stay at the Y which in those days you got a room mate who you didn't know but it was cheap and I usually ended up walking around because I was not the type to hang out in bars. I did visit the worst places in the biggest cities though [g].

I lived in some pretty rough neighborhoods too when we lived off the base and real dives.

IT is really a parodox how life has its many twists and turns and we end up where we are. Well, I am never moving again - even though in the late 70s I did retire for awhile from real esate and did a lot of traveling. It is that wonderlust I told you about. Missing the army and not being on the move. And the first move was really for my son, Rich - and us too, but mostly to find a state where he could be educated. It was before PL94, a law which mandated mainstreaming the handicapped. Until then where we were at they warehoused the disabled and being in a school where he did finger painting and the lowest common denominator was severely mentally challenged was deleterious to my son - so we moved to MA and bought 42 acres back in the woods. That was so he could go to a regular school. And it paid off. We eventually moved again, this time to N C and there he was the first person in a wheelchair to graduate from high school. Incredible as it may seem now, there was much more discrimination of the disabled then. Before our first move to MA I had to sue the school system to try to have him mainstreamed. It cost me a lot of money and I lost.

He could have gone on to college but he didn't. I'm sorry I held him back. I really do have a lot of regrets. BUT suing home owner associations to put in ramps and fighting for wheelchair parking before there was any is something I have had to do.

I made money in real estate, building homes and apartments and developing land and selling property as a broker, but I really wasn't that happy. We travelled to Europe and to Israel and I was a volunteer during the war there in 73.

I finally did what I always wanted to do and that was own a book store. In fact we have had three of them. That was fun but there is NO money in it. NONE. But you get to be around a lot of books (g).

There is so much more but I'll skip all that. I'm probably boring you. I just wanted to say how nice it was to hear from you Ken. I really appreciate knowing what you have been doing. I wish you and your wife the very best. Take care and write again sometime.

Hank Roth

4th letter to my friend

I just proof read my letter. Sorry about so many typos. I type fast and proof later (g). I just wanted to mention the KY1. Did you work on it also? That was the unit I had trained on at the Naval Security Agency and I would have to change the cards in it every morning in the Oval Office.

We didn't have computers then as you know, but in the Pentagon they did have a huge room size computer with tubes, boolean adders, diode multipliers, relays and it was right next to the war room. My uncle had the first Eniac at Aberdeen Proving Grounds. He was a physicist there and I was invited over to see it. When I did get into computers it was before the army and we didn't quite know what to use them for. I built my first computer. Then I got all the Commodores as they released them and converted one of them into a teletype machine. AT the White House I was the ham operator so I was knowledgeable about communications and they had me liaison with some General Electric engineers to build the first wide-band television system for the White House.

I really liked Ike. In fact McCain reminds me of him and while I'm a registered Democrat now and I don't know why [smile], I will be supporting McCain and Palin in November. I don't trust Obama and I have met enough phony-s in my life to recognize one when I see or meet one. Maybe I shouldn't be talking to you about this, but I really believe it would be a disaster for our country if he is elected. And incidentally, I didn't like Bush so much either - but at least we have not been hit again.

I want a strong defense. And we have been very lucky in this country. I want to keep it that way. I think Russia moving those bombers to Venezuela is very much a threat (although they probably see our missiles in Poland and elsewhere in Europe in much the same way. I think the moderate in McCain can tamp down the heat. I think Obama can give away the store - and I am convinced his vetting is an abject failure and you can't put your money on undefined hope and change.

Just my two cents. I felt like since we're sharing I may as well vent (grin).

Regardless of your position on that, don't be offended by my politics; I usually speak what is on my mind - and stay in touch Ken.

Hank