Howard's Grenada Journal
- 25th November
- 26th November
- 27th November
- 28th November
- 29th November
- 30th November
- 1st December
- 2nd December
- 3rd December
What that Means: I spent the day getting my stuff ready to go. Daniel Blaue (the name Blaue rhymes with Cow) was another guy in my platoon and I pilfered stuff from his stash of goodies while he was out. "Ghost" or "Ghosting" was what we did when there wasn't much going on. That was a term for hiding out so someone didn't find something to do just to make you look busy. That evening I took a nap. Sergeant Anderson knocked on my door to make sure I was up when it was time to saddle up and go. I used the word "party" because everyone going was in high spirits.
What that Means: We rode to Green Ramp at Pope Air Force Base. We hung out for a while waiting for the aircraft to be ready. We had to wait for them to finish fueling up the aircraft before we boarded. After the plane took off everyone slept on the floor of the plane. The floor of the plane was warm! We landed about 7:00 am and were excited to see Palm trees and warm weather. We went to the Grand Anse College Campus and waited until 3:00 for our afternoon helicopter flight north to Gouyave. From there we went to Gouyave, then up to our communications site in the banana patch, a.k.a. The Hilltop Hotel. We were there to replace Sgt Rennaker and another guy, who were members of our own platoon. He showed us the basics on how to operate the TAC SAT. Since it was the rainy season, it Rained a lot.Saturday 26th November 1983 eat some pizza & chat. walk out on ramp. 2:30 wait. take off 3:00 look at deck. sleep on floor - warm. wake up look out window - water clouds. on deck. land 7:00. look out door - palm trees. gonzales 2 1/2 ton to college at grand anse. sit in shade. chat with Mathews. go on beach, eat coconuts. 1500. black hawk to LZ Vicki Rowe and I sit in rain 'till jeep comes. ride to Gouyave. ride up hills to banana station. Rennaker shows us the TAC SAT. - Rain Rain Rain
What that Means: First day on the job and it looks like we slept in; UP AT 8:00 a.m. !!!. Tommy took the first shift at radio watch, monitoring the radio. Pretty boring. I went, with others, to supply to get some things. I thought we were just going down to Gouyave, but we ended up going all the way back to Point Salines by truck. Some of the guys were dropped off at the airport to go get paid. For some reason they were never able to get paid. I bought some film while I was in the airport. Driving through St. George's was interesting, going around the Harbor and through a tunnel in town. I didn't know this then but the 12-foot-high, 340-foot-long Sendall Tunnel (click to see pictures) is named after the governor in office at the time of its construction in 1895.Sunday 27th November Up 8:00 shave. Rowe takes shift. I go to supply to get Fatigues & boots & pay. Ride all the way to Salines in truck to cement factory. Get Cokes & C Rations & [Jungle] boots go to PX get film. Go to Grand Anse. go back to Airport. Get people (no pay). Go back up coast through St. George's & Tunnel. See female Guard. 8:00 that night - get mission for small island 3rd Squad A Co. 2/505 long range reconnisance patrol lost. Tear down the TAC SAT. ride down to LZ Vicki wait for chopper. Come back. set up loose power. Down sleep.In the week before I went down to Grenada I had seen a front-page news photo of a Female MP on guard duty in Grenada. We drove right past the same girl on our way back north. That night we were told we'd have to move the TAC SAT to another location. Alpha Company's 3rd-Squad Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol was on the Island of Carricou, north of Grenada. They'd lost contact with this squad, and were concerned about them. We moved our TAC SAT radio down to LZ Vicki and were briefed on what we'd do once flown to the island in the dark since it was nighttime. As it turned out their FM radio had broken down and evetyone was OK. The lost squad returned on the helicopter. We went back to the Hilltop Hotel and set the TAC SAT back up. But then, for some reason, the radio wouldn't work. It wasn't getting power. Neither Tommy nor I knew what was wrong. We went to sleep that night disappointed and a little embarrassed in our failed equipment.
What that Means: That morning I washed up in one of the big water tanks down stairs. We disposed of our trash at this sight by burning it. Being a pyromaniac I was all too happy to get something I could set on fire. A radio repairman from our 82nd Signal Battalion came to the site to see what was wrong with the TAC SAT. It turned out there was too much room in the battery box below the radio. The battery box was designed to have the battery make contact with a cutout-switch also located in the battery box, and it wasn't making that connection. A simple piece of cardboard under the battery took up the gap and allowed the battery to make contact with the switch; a field expedient repair. The repair guy stayed over at the site because the last Helicopter out of LZ Vicki had come and gone already. He'd hang out with us on The Porch and shoot the breeze. One of the grunts (Infantry guys) was telling his Grenada combat stories that evening down stairs by the jeep.Monday 28th November Up take bath in banana tubs. burn some garbage in morning. Repairman comes. fixes it stays. we talked on the porch till 8:00 chopper fly by. O5B-11B tells about his story down stairs.
What that Means: The previous evening I got stuck on Guard Duty from midnight to 6:00 a.m. I was using the Night Vision goggles and somehow lost my glasses. You can't use the goggles and wear your glasses at the same time. I eventually found my glasses when it got light out. After being up all night I tried to get some sleep. Later that morning it was announced a VIP was coming to our location, so we had to clean up the site and make ourselves presentable. I got to burn more trash out in the banana patch. This is when Tommy took the photo of me in my Gas Mask by the hanging bunch of bananas.Tuesday 29th November 12-6 guard duty with night vision glasses. lost my glasses. try to sleep in morning. clean up and burn more garbage. Genral Smith was coming. put on ruck & mask to get ready. Lunch take radio - slept cause Rowe was there. go up on roof take pictures. play checkers with Rowe. Running low on batteries. 7:00 write. crashout at 8:00 - before dinner. H minister came & gave Thanksgiving Service Downstairs 12 - 6am guard night goggles
What that Means: Another Bathtub day. Some of the guys at the site had beer, locally made CARIB beer in brown bottles. I don't know where they got it from, probably somewhere in town, but a couple of small children came by and asked if they could have the empty beer bottles. We packed up our equipment in preperation to move from the Hilltop Hotel site to set up at another site, but we ended up not moving after all. We ate C-Ration, meals in a can, most of the time. We also had the new MREs in the brown plastic bags. There was a box in the corner of the radio room with all the left over stuff from C-ration meals that no one wanted, ham & eggs and stuff like that, after the meals had been picked through. On occasion the evening meal was a hot meal delivered to us by jeep. They brought it up to our site in the old Thermite Cans, which was an Army type hot food chest with multiple containers for different entrees. Late that night I got sick and puked my guts out and had diarreah too. Not fun. I was sick at 4:00am too. Earlier in the evening Tommy Rowe and I were dancing on the Porch to Carribbean Calypos music we heard on a small civilian radio that was picking up "Radio Trinidad".Wednesday 30th November 1983 up. take a bath in banana tub. Rowe too. littel kids wanted the [empty] beer bottles. go upstairs and pack all personal belongings to jump from site to site. (never did) talk with the Kid - more rain. eat lunch C-Rations. mess with machete. dancing on the porch to island music Radio Trinidad late chow. stomach turned over by something [I ate] puke & sh*t 0400 puke
What that Means: Still not feeling well, I was in no mood to be bounced around in the back of a truck for the ride down to Salines. Besides, it was Tommy's turn to see the island from the back of a truck, as I had. It was a long, quiet day on Radio Watch. Tommy and I played checkers some more. I got another two-hour shift of Guard Duty between ten o'clock and midnight.Thursday 1st December 1983 sick stomach. clean up. they left for pay without me. Rowe went. I stay on radio watch. all day long. they came back after 3:00, Rowe beat me at another game of checkers. Guard 10-12
What that Means: In the morning I had free time to look at some fairly recent newspapers that we had there. Tommy had the radio in the morning; I took it at 12:00. At 3:00 a small group of us went down to the Village of Gouyave for haircuts. The guys we were with had been on the island for over a month and needed haircuts. I guess I was picked out for getting one too. A civilian in town named "Danny Boy" had a simple chair outside that we sat in. He must have been paid by the hour and not by the haircut because he was incredibly slow. After my hair cut I was able to wander off a short way to observe the squalor and filth of the neighborhood at the edge the beautiful ocean. Quite an interesting contrast. That evening I was on radio watch during a routine radio check in which the Network Control Station made a radio contact with each one of the sites on the network. For some reason one station had problems with a change over and they dwelled on that one station for the longest time. I was waiting for them to get to me so I could shut down for the night. They never did, and I Finally just shut the thing down. I took a nap before I had Guard duty from 10:00 to Midnight again.Friday 2nd December 1983 Up take a bath read in morning. take the radio at 12:00. 3:00 go to Gouyave for haircut at Dannyboy's sit three hours. till dark. walk out by ocean between shitty little shacks. go back monitor radio 1945 change over. wait for radio check. quit. sleep short guard 10-12
What that Means: After being on the island for a week I found that I enjoyed being there. I was not ready to go back to Fort Bragg. Today for a change I took the early radio watch from 6:00 am to noontime. The Net Control Station was not on the air, so I answered a few radio checks in their absence. I was done reading a paperback book about war in the Pacific during WWII, which I found in a pile of reading materials. I hadn't really eaten anything since I was sick Wednesday Night/ Thursday Morning and was getting hungry and started off light with some bread. In the afternoon I had time to look at a copy of US News and World Report to see what happened a few weeks ago. I spent some time up on the roof of the building and one of the other radio operators climbed up there too. In the evening I had to go out by the road to make sure the jeep bringing the hot meal to us that evening wouldn't miss our site as had happened in the past.Saturday 3rd December 1983 Have been on island one week. I don't want to go "home" to Fort Bragg. nice life here. up in moring. shave take 6-12 radio watch. B3C [Net control station - Radio Call Sign Bravo-Three-Charlie] was down. I answered a few radio checks. Q2L [Quebeck-Two-Lima] also noticed [radio] interference in the background. source unknown. finsh reading "Pacific Hell Fire" okay book. eat some bread to get some food in my empty system. climb up on roof. read US News & World Report. talk with Rhode Island Dude. Terrence came topside too. Go out to flag down the chow truck.
(That's It from the Journal)
