Filed at 11:57 pm under Roi Namur the Novel by glennstu
July is here and time for the next chapter where Matthew goes diving with sharks. Tune in next month for the another chapter.
Early the next morning I had my usual breakfast at the chow hall then went back to my room and put on my swimming trunks and gathered up my regulator and climbed on my bike to ride to the other side of the island where the dive shack was situated. To get there you ride the length of Roi past the abandoned ruins of Japanese buildings left over from the war and further down the road past the present building which houses the police station, airport offices, health clinic, and the office of the island manager. Just past this building the road I was on met another road close to a gazebo structure on the beach called the Parrot club. Next you turn left and cross over to Namur and continue down the road past the marina on your right before finanlly arriving at the dive shack. The dive shack is actually 3 buildings. One is an open gazebo with picnic tables, a second contains the tanks and compressor, and a third is a locker room where I met the other divers. I passed Gary on the way who was headed back to the marina to get the boat. At the dive shack was Brian Pierce, another engineer that I worked closely with, Hank Laird, an older technician who helped maintain the radars, and Jackie, a very attractive woman from California of Japanese discent. Jackie was a space tracker as well who was making a rare appearance during the day time. Most if not all of the single men on Roi had a crush on her. Besides her obvious physical beauty she was always very cheerful and engaging. It hardly seemed like she belonged working with her sullen colleages.
Hank looked up at me as I entered and said “You’re late!” Read more »
Filed at 10:21 pm under Roi Namur the Novel by glennstu
Yokwe Jara,
It is time to add another installment of my novel. For those of you new to my site, I’m writing a novel and adding a chapter on the first of every month. This is your chance to see a novel in process. Thanks for coming to my site and I hope you enjoy it. Next month’s chapter features a visit to shark infested Speedball so please check back on July 1st.
Chapter 5
They call it the cocoanut telegraph. It is how word spreads on the islands and it spreads uncannily fast even without the aid of the internet. When I walked into the cafeteria for lunch the day they found Duane you could sense something was wrong. Folks were gathered in groups on tables talking quietly among themselves. The normally friendly workers behind the counter had little to say other than to ask if I wanted a burger or a hot dog. They didn’t ask the usual annoying question of if I wanted cheese despite knowing that everytime for the last several weeks I had ordered it without cheese. It confirmed my suspicion that they had been playing with me all along but today were too distracted to comment. Reggie wasn’t around so I sat with Phil and Karen. Phil was one of the radar technicians and his wife Karen was a mission coordinator. They were an interesting couple. Phil looked every bit the refuge from the 60s though I knew he could not have been that old. In his spare time he taught a yoga class and was also one of the dive instructors. Karen was an ex marine. She didn’t have Phil’s easy going way but was a dependable friend when you needed one. She wore her black hair short and favored polo shirts and kacki shorts. Virtually no one wore long pants on the island unless they needed to because of safety concerns in their work.
Read more »
Filed at 1:47 pm under Roi Namur the Novel by glennstu
Here’s the latest chapter. Check this site the first of every month for the next chapter to be published. Thanks for reading.
The next dawn found Reggie and I eating breakfast together and both nursing hangovers. We’d hung out in his BQ for some time listening to music then headed down to the bar for a night cap when Reggie’s supply of Red Stripe had dwindled to none. After we’d fiinished the last of our eggs and toast Duane came in a sat down alone a few tables away from ours. Reggie nodded at me and the two of us walked over to Duane’s table. Read more »
Filed at 8:31 pm under Roi Namur the Novel by glennstu
Yokwe. The first of the month is here and time for your next chapter of my novel “Roi-Namur”
Ron flies up every work day to perform his work on Roi. He showed me around the 4 radar buildings. The largest of the radar antennas was Altair and stands on its own. Further down the road are the three other buildings. There is another that stands alone called MMW. The last two, Tradex and Alcor are connected. Tradex is the oldest of the four antennas and its building houses the main office area for the managers and engineers who work on the island. It is connected via an exposed hall way to Alcor where my new office was located. The office was fairly large and housed a green metal desk that must have been built in the 50s and a workbench with test equipment and parts used by previous workers. There was also a bookcase housing a number of books dealing with radar and some parts catalogs. Ron showed me around the various buildings and introduced me to the workers there. Down the hall from my office worked an extremely energetic engineer named Jimmy Hires. He was thin with matching thin black hair that he fashioned into a comb over. He was quite friendly and always willing to help but never seemed to have an abundance of time to perform such service. He was always chasing after some problem or calibrating the radar. His dedication and professionalism were hard to match. Ron took me over to the office of one of the radar technicians named Gary Christman. He hailed from the same mid-west city as I did so we could discuss some shared experiences. Ron told me later that Gary’s father had been a submarine captain in World War II and by a strange coincicdence had visited the Marshall Islands back then. Gary was about 6 foot 2 and weighed well over 200 lbs but was a friendly sort. Gary invited me to go diving and explained what I would need to do to get my certification to dive there. I already had an SSI advanced open water certification but the Army required the folks there to jump through a few hoops to make sure they would be safe. He agreed to take me on a verification dive after work the next day and then I should be able to dive the following weekend.
Read more »
Filed at 1:02 pm under Roi Namur the Novel by glennstu
Iakwe, it is time for chapter 2 of the novel I’m working on. Here it is:
Chapter 2
In the morning I found my own way to the cafeteria. I was told I needed a meal card but they decided to cut me a break recognizing I was new in these parts. After getting some hot cakes and eggs I sat myself down at one of the long tables by myself and started to eat. Shortly afterwards a friendly thin black man of medium height with a beard and dread locks sat down and introduced himself as RG Dread. I eventually learned his real name was Reginald Osbourne from Kingston Jamaica. He said he recognized me as new to the island by not recognizing me. It seems all the folks here know each other at least by name and face. “What’s your name mon?” he queried.“Matthew” I replied.“Well Matty it is a pleasure to meet you, I be honored should you let me show you around a bit.”“Thanks that’d be great and I go by Matthew usually.” Reggie worked in the optics lab but in his free time he ran the tiny 25 W radio station called KVZI 97.9 FM. In Reggie I had found a kindred spirit as we both loved reggae music and as time went on we would spend hours talking about it or else sitting back listening to some roots over a cold beer. He explained to me that having arrived the day before, a Saturday, that it was the last day of the work week on Kwajalein atoll. They work Tuesday through Saturday since they are on the other side of the date line and this allows them to line up with the people back in the states and allows better communication state-side. This being a Sunday morning he had free time to show me the island. Read more »
Filed at 1:40 pm under Roi Namur the Novel by glennstu
Hi, it has been a while since I posted because frankly I ran out of humorous and informative stories. In the mean time I’ve been working on writing my first novel (actually it is not the first novel I ever started but hope to actually finish it). To that end, I’ve decided to start a new feature on Roi Rat journal. That feature is that once a month I will add a new chapter from my book and the following will be my first installment. I’ll attempt to add one around the first of the month so look for the next one on March 1, 2010 AD (CE). This is only a very rough draft of the book so once it is a best seller you can look back at the draft and see how much it has changed. Without further ado here is the book:
Today is a good day, I don’t think I even need my meds. I am sitting outside at a table in the “Rest Home” where I have been staying since I left Roi. They call it a “Rest Home” but let’s not fool ourselves, it is a psychiatrict hospital. It is located outside Tucson, Arizona. I think they sent me to this particular home because the desert seems as far away from Roi as one could get. It is a sunny day in early March and they’ve said they may even take some of us to a Spring Training game later. My doctor has suggested that it would be therapeutic for me to write about my time on Roi, that perhaps if I wrote in chronilogical order of my time there that somehow I would remember what really happened and not what he calls my lunatical ravings. I wish to God that what I remember happening as clear as remember getting out of bed this morning and putting on my slippers was only my imagination, that my friends did not suffer the horrors that they encountered, that these eyes never saw what they saw that I never had stood on the dark chasm of death until my rescue. Well, I will start at my first day on Kwajalein atoll and we’ll see where this story takes us. Maybe I do need my meds today. Read more »
Filed at 12:45 am under Diving by glennstu
Iakwe,
This week on Discovery is shark week, one of my favorite weeks of the year television wise. It sure has brought back lots of memories of my time on Roi and the great diving there. Tonight they had a show on the 10 deadliest sharks. Unfortunately I missed the first half of the show because 2 of the sharks on the list I dove with off Roi. Those were the white tip and the grey reef shark. I saw and swam with a number of those as well as nurse sharks and black tips while on Roi. There are tiger sharks there but I never saw one nor did anyone I can think of. But shortly before I arrived a tiger was caught either on Roi or Enniburr. My friend had its jaw. Watching all these shows is making me crave going diving again. Read more »
Filed at 7:54 pm under Travel by glennstu
Last night I watched the movie Letters from Iwo Jima which I quite enjoyed. By coincidence today my mother sent me some letters I had written to my family when I worked in Riyadh back in 1991. Though far removed from Roi-Namur I thought it might be interesting to see where this Roi Rat had worked in other over seas assignments. It is not unusual for Roi Rats to work in various places over seas. I’d say we were an adventurous lot. So this following letter was written on July 11, 1991. It was a predecessor to letters I would eventually write from Roi.
Dear Family and Friends,
Sorry for writing a group letter but I had intended to write individual letters and have never got around to it. Besides, I’d probably just write the same thing to everyone anyways.
On my way over here I came through Amsterdam, and enjoyed myself quite a bit. I found the Dutch to be a good humored people, though I haven’t figured out why they would laugh every time I spoke Nederlandes (Dutch) to them. My command of the language helped me to make friends. A few times it didn’t help, like when I would get on a Dutch plane I’d greet the flight attendant in Dutch. She would see my obvious Dutch features and see my Dutch name on my boarding past and would make the false assumption I was Dutch and then proceeded to rattle off a bunch of Nederlandes in reply. Although I speak Nederlandes, I barely understand a word of it. I assumed she was telling me where my seat was, though she could have been telling me I looked like a drowned rat[Foreshadowing of my future on Roi where I did look like a drowned rat at times] . When I went to England 4 years ago I felt like I was visiting somebody’s grandmother’s house. You know, old and stuffy with a bunch of antiques. Visiting the Netherlands seemed more like a Studevant reunion. The people looked like Studevants, they acted like Studevants, they drank beer like Studevants. What I enjoyed the most was visiting fishing villages on the Zuider Zee (South Sea), and a boat tour on the canals in Amsterdam. I found a picture of one of our ancestors that I’ll show you if you come to Seattle but I did not find any living Studevants. So much for the Netherlands. Read more »
Filed at 11:56 pm under Fishing by glennstu
Perhaps when I described the huge tuna that I caught off Airok folks may have had their doubts about the size of the fish I caught despite the photo I included. That’s fine. But let me tell you, this week I received some photos from former Roi resident Rob Corbin with actual untouched photos of fish he landed along with our friend Mike shown in the photos. Actually I do not know who caught which fish but let’s give the credit to Rob until I hear differently. If you recall from my post on July 26th of last year, Mike and Rob are dedicated fishermen who have made a science of this great sport. It has paid dividends as you can see from these photos. Read more »
Filed at 7:50 pm under Travel by glennstu
Aloha,
Today I watched the Pro Bowl in Hawaii and sighted a Kwaj. sign in the stands. I can recall guys going there for the Pro Bowl as the closest professional football game to Kwajalein atoll. I enjoy watching any sport called football, while my favorite is what I refer to as “real football” or what my country men usually refer to as soccer (short for association football), I grew up cheering for the Cleveland Browns and have always loved American rules football (where ironically you rarely use your feet and the guys that do are not respected by their teammates). So knowing I am about to enter a dead time in American football viewing I enjoyed the game itself but I also quite enjoy the shots of Hawaiian scenery and some of the unrelated stories about activities to do there. One sport that I was ignorant of before today is the ancient Hawaiian sport of paddle surfing. Read more »
