Chapter 3 - Matt’s first day of work

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.   

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Roi-Namur the Novel Chapter 2

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 »

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