[R-390] ASA

[dog]

Yeah, that picture on the first page of the 280th is Andrews Barracks, 
those 2 long buildings in the back are  the Prussian/SS barracks we 
lived in. That building on the right is the swimming pool for the 32 
Olympics. That Gruenewald picture is the CW intercept building at the 
base of Teufelsberg. When I was there the NSA site was just a group of 
trailers attached to a central golf ball microwave dish. I think the 
280th came right after I left, they were changing the name all the time. 
I've got no problem talking about my time there, it's all known, but 
then I wasn't in a combat zone although I did get an Occupation Medal 
because Berlin was occupied. We had Russian linguists and German 
linguists, we listened to the Russian and East German army doing 
maneuvers in the eastern section, I was in the 'Orange' section where we 
had a 64 channel PPM microwave link from the 'Zentral Kommitee'. We made 
OB files on everyone that talked on the system. I got to go to Templehof 
once with a Sgt where they did ELINT with the AFASA. We used to get 
publications from the East Germans that had pictures of out workstations 
including the tape recorders we used in the site I worked at, USM620K. 
Interesting times. Berlin was a real nice city and the Berliners loved 
us, especially if we could talk their language. In a way it was a fun 
time, in others not so much. I was glad to get out and spent the next 3 
years in the inactive reserve and at UofMD. By then we were in the 
middle of VN. I was lucky. Most of the guys that were younger than I 
ended up in VN.

Maybe 15-20 years ago a bunch of us from ALS got together for a couple 
years at one of the fellows place up near Boston. I did get in touch 
with quite a few of them afterwards, but some of them just disappeared 
it seems like. They probably wanted to.