Many years ago, sometime in 1998, I found myself one stormy night, sitting in the phone system equipment room that belonged to a wholesale food distributor in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Their system had been down for some time, due to a lightning hit. I made hardware repairs and reloaded the system programming to complete the whole restoration process. I was sitting there watching my laptop, which was connected to the phone system, do its thing successfully or so the phone system flashing lights told me when my cell phone rang.

I answered it and it was my friend Brutus on the other end. Brutus worked for a large interconnect company in Richmond and he called me to tell me about a curious call he received a few hours before. It was an emergency call that came to him. The caller was from a Marine Technical Company in New Jersey. They were looking for someone who could do an emergency phone system install on a Merchant Marine ship docked at the Sunnydale terminal in Tyron, North Carolina. Brutus said that for some unknown reason, his company was listed on a marine vendor list, but they had no desire to try to take on this job, but maybe I would. He filled me in on many of the details and gave me the caller’s phone number as well.

He provided me with the number after I said sure, I will take this job. I had no idea what door of opportunity this call would open for me, a very big door as it turned out.

I called the owner of the Marine Company, whose name was Dick. We talked for a few minutes, and worked out the details and we were both satisfied and pleased with the outcome of that call. Dick needed a large phone system for the ship, their old one had bitten the dust and they didn’t want to repair it, they were told it needed to be replaced, including all the phone sets on the ship, for a very large sum of money. When I was told the price, I said I could do it for much less, and that one reason was they did not need to replace their rotary sets if they did not want to. That was the kicker.

The next morning I called my supplier and ordered a refurbished Mitel system that had the ability to use touch-tone and rotary phones. They shipped it the same day, I had it the next morning, loaded up my truck, and headed for Sunnydale. It was the second time I had a ship job, the first was a Navy aircraft carrier, the Saratoga, to be exact. I was working for another company at the time I designed that installation but left my crew to actually do the work.

This time I was working for myself, which was a whole lot better. The job was difficult, but doable because I had some crewmen assigned to help me out. They actually enjoyed the work. One of the extension cards failed and Diane had to drive down, in a heavy thunderstorm, with the kids in the car to deliver a replacement to me. That was exciting.

I finished the job, checked everything out, and trained some of the crew on the system. I drove back to Portsmouth and the next day the ship sailed.

Over the next few months, I was given a couple more opportunities to install phone systems on ships for Dick and his company. We developed a very good relationship.

Then one day I got a call from them that offered some very unique problems to solve. Dick’s secretary, Mary told me that they were asked by the Navy to do an emergency install on a Merchant Marine redeployment vessel currently anchored in the harbor at Diego Garcia. At first, I thought that this job must be in Spain or Mexico, which made no sense to me. Mary then told me that Diego as it is called is an island in the Indian Ocean, directly south of India and just below the equator. The middle of nowhere on the other side of the world in other words. The Navy Department of Procurement was desperate to get this job done and none of their normal vendors wanted to take this assignment on. Could I do it?

I asked a few questions about the size of the ship, not much was known by Mary or Dick but they did their best to get the answers and called me back shortly. They did, told me what they knew and I said yes, I can do it. I needed to configure a price which they said didn’t matter that much, as the job needed to be done at just about any cost. That didn’t influence me much, I was going to charge what it took to do it correctly, and do it fast, not jack up my rates because I could. Dick was covering all travel expenses as well as the phone system and my labor. I needed to get a passport, along with special transport papers from the Navy, and to speed this up I would need to visit the local office of my Congressman.

The thing that would slow all this down was one: The United States Post Office was the only entity that delivers mail and supplies to the folks in Diego. I would have to get my system ordered in a hurry, and then box it up so it could safely travel 13,000 miles, then deliver it to the downtown Norfolk Post office and get it shipped and keep very careful records of what was in each of the ten boxes (I think) and provide Dick with a manifest of the contents of each box with copies for myself, for him and for the chief engineer of the Buffaloe Soldier, which happens to be the name of the ship.

I did all that and it wasn’t easy. My flight or should I say flights, could not be booked until we had confirmation that the boxes were safely on the supply dock next to where the Buffaloe Soldier was anchored. I don’t remember how long it took, seemed like a long couple of weeks but it was a short time for the USPS and the Navy to get the system and me there, short for them anyway.

I had some things to do for myself to get ready to go. First I purchased a really tough rolling toolbox that could be locked and filled it with tools test equipment and any and all small parts that I thought I would need and had the room for. I planned to take my hand tools, which were in a zippered tool pouch, on the plane with me along with my camera, my one bag I checked along with the toolbox. I had my passport, wallet with ID, my orders from the Navy, and my ticket. As usual, when flying I wore a sports coat, mainly because I like the pockets.

Day 1 I took an afternoon United Airlines flight to Chicago, where I changed planes for my flight to Tokyo. Around ten pm I along with a lot of Japanese passengers, almost all of which were flying home from a toy convention that was held in Chicago, left for Narita International. I made a big mistake and booked a window seat. That is not a smart thing to do when on a very long international flight and there are three seats between you and the isle, and ultimately the head when you really need to go there.

As soon as the plane began its move to the runway, the people in the plane with me kicked off their shoes, put on slippers and eyemasks, lowered their seatbacks, and went to sleep. I guess that is what they did, I couldn’t see their eyes to verify that. I took out my 24-hour pocket watch, which was a present from my son Joel, and set it for our arrival time in Tokyo. That watch would do more to help me not get a really bad dose of jet lag than anything else.

Sometime during the flight, a not bad at all Japanese meal was served, and it came with a lot of green tea, which I drank as did the male passenger next to me. Not too long after this meal, I noticed a strained look on my fellow passenger’s face. I suspect he saw the same look on mine. He looked at me and with a slight Japanese accent said “Follow me” and then preceded to climb up on the back of the seats, tightrope to the aisle, and jump softly to the floor. I was right behind him. We made our way to the back of the plane and stood in line for one of the lavatories.

Afterward, we reversed our escape to make it back to our seats. We did not disturb the other two folks in our row at all.

My window seat turned out to have an advantage over a row seat as we were flying over Alaska. The view was quite amazing.

After some very tiring thirteen hours from Chicago, we landed at Narita International Airport. I am not sure, don’t remember, what time of the day it was there when we landed, but it was dark outside. I went to baggage claim and found out my Craftsman Toolbox was pretty well-made when it came up the baggage escalator upside down. I grabbed it, flipped it over and the lid was on tight. I grabbed my duffle bag, put it on top of the toolbox, adjusted my tool and camera bags on my shoulders, and headed for security, and then customs.

I put my toolbox up on the scanner belt, along with all my bags. When the box came out on the other side I was asked to open it. I was expecting this due to the look of the x-ray, lots of wires, and small strange things, which reminded me of bomb-making parts. I had been advised as to what to say to the people working at security. As soon as one of them took a surprised look at my tools and meters, I pointed to myself and said “Engineer” . That was the magic word. The agent smiled and said in return “You Engineer?” I smiled and said yes. “Okay,” he said, You come with me”. He then escorted me to customs, made sure they knew what I was, and handed them my passport and special Travel Orders from the Navy. Those papers acted as my visa, which I didn’t have.

A couple of minutes and two stamps later I was on an almost two-hour-long bus ride with other service personnel to Yokota Air Force base where I was supposed to spend the night and then catch a MAC flight to Singapore the next morning. It didn’t quite work out that way.

My papers and passport were checked once more, the magic word still cast its spell, which got me on the bus with no problems.

The bus ride was great. I was very impressed with just how large Tokyo is and how they light that place up. The tall buildings were giant light-driven billboards with movie or TV-like screens down each side. ,

The cars on the road all seemed to drive at the same speed (whatever that was) and I never heard a single horn blow.

We arrived at Yokota only to find out, after a very long wait, that a bunch of officers had flown in from Diego Garcia for some kind of exercise (turned out to be a big party, as I found out later) and took our rooms. We were told we would be put up for the night at a hotel in the city. I didn’t mind that idea, but another long ride on the bus only to discover we would have to be back at the base four hours later didn’t help me feel less tired. One of the servicemen (I don’t remember what branch) said he was not going to sleep, but would spend some time in the 24-hour automated sushi bar, and down some Saki or Sake, and would see me out front in the morning, that is if I didn’t want to join him. I politely declined.

I checked into the Mori Town (Akashima) Hilton, I think, which was not that hard, used my credit card, made sure I would get a receipt, and then caught the very small elevator to my floor. The whole hotel seemed to be a smaller model of the same kind of hotel you would find in the States. The room was small, and it took me a while to figure out how to turn on the lights. I had to put my room key in a spot on the light panel and turn it on, and leave the key, a regular-looking key, not a card. in the lock. The bed in the room had a robe laying on it, a kimono I guess, slippers under the bed, and instructions in English and Japanese to be polite and not wear either in the hall. The desk had a small Sony b&w tv, and a built-in hotplate also made by Sony. I found out I didn’t really want to sleep so I took a shower, and in the process almost broke my neck in the very short but very deep tub. I just didn’t notice how big that step into it was. The toilet had the most powerful flush I had ever seen.

I watched a bit of crazy Japanese TV. for a bunch of quiet and very polite people, they shed that side of themselves when a TV camera is pointed at them. I avoided the shall we say most “revealing” channels and watched a couple of game shows, that involved eating a lot of bugs and other unpleasant things, and caught an English talk show. The couple hosting it was going bonkers over their guest who was a NASCAR driver. They loved him. They had a live call-in contest and gave away one of his helmets. This took place at about 1 am Tokyo time.

I think I sleep for about two hours, but it felt like ten minutes when my wake-up call jolted me out of my skin.

Start of Day 2, I dressed in a hurry, grabbed all my stuff, it and my rolling box made it back down to the lobby. My fellow traveler was waiting there and the bus showed up in just a couple of minutes. We jumped on board, my gear was loaded and back to Yakota, we went.

We had enough time before our flight to grab some breakfast in the base exchange coffee shop. It was a very good American breakfast, eggs, sausage, toast, strong coffee, and large flaky biscuits and all of us grabbed a couple of extras for the flight. I met a young lady in the Navy who was an air-traffic controller on her way to Diego for her first deployment. We sat on the plane next to each other and chatted as we flew over Mt Fuji. I pulled out my watch and set it for the time in Singapore, seven and a half hours away.

The Mac flight was on a commercial airplane that had been divided in half, the front half was cargo, and the back half was passengers with a flight attendant and felt like any other commercial flight. It didn’t seem too long before we flew down the coast of Vietnam and then reached Singapore. We would be there long enough to pick up some very drunk merchant mariners and their friends who helped them get on board the plane. They had been on a three-week leave, and due to tax advantages did not go home to the States (stay out of the USA for a year and your income is free of Fed tax), they choose Singapore where too many partied, and tried not to get arrested.

The time there was really short and we headed, for five hours, almost due west across the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia, our next stop. We would be thirteen hours from Toyko which was thirteen hours from Chicago. I was going to finally arrive on the other side of the world from where I started.

I was in for some strange things when we finally landed in Diego. We disembarked the plane and walked into the terminal. Our luggage was spread out on the floor in rows as a couple of what looked like police or military men in shorts and knee socks walked between the rows with a big black dog. I knew what they were doing, checking for drugs among other things. Diego Garcia is one part of The British Indian Ocean Territory, and these gentlemen were members of the small constabulary force of Royal Marines that ran the whole island. I was told there were thirty-four of them, and they governed 1200 merchant mariners, a couple of thousand service people, and 10,000 Filipinos. Wow, they must be good I thought.

They laid out the law. No drugs, no public drinking off your ship, no swimming on certain beaches, and no pornography or other contraband videos (turns out that included Seinfield) among other things. Break these rules and you are on the next flight out of here. Once we received our instructions on how to behave and the consequences if we don’t, we picked up our luggage and headed for the ferry boat to the Buffalo Soldier. I had a stop to make first and that was to the purser’s office and check on my phone system (and I considered it mine until it was paid for, completely paid for.) I had my manifest list for each box. I met the ship’s purser and we went through everything and made sure it was all there and with no damage. We had to hunt for one small box that ended up in the wrong part of the warehouse. We found it, much to my relief, and loaded everything on a cart, with help from a couple of crew we rolled it out to our boat and then loaded it on. I was impressed with the blue water and how flat the land was as we left it. Diego Garcia is a snake-like island that is actually the rim of an ancient long-dormant volcano. The bay inside the volcano is calm and quiet. The ocean outside is just the opposite. It is full of choppy waves and the hot wind blows across the cold ocean. The water next to the equator although tropical is cold, which surprised me.

Once at the ship’s side, a cargo net was lowered and we loaded all my equipment into the net and up it went to the deck. I was nervous watching thousands of dollars treated like so much fish. Well, not exactly. The crane operator was very gentle, and considering other cargo he had to handle this way, once I learned what that was, I understood just how careful he was. I went up the gangway, and then made my way to the Captain’s office. We met. shook hands and discussed how to start the process of getting the old system out and the new one in. He promised to assign me one full-time person, and two if he could. I told him that would be great but I would not need anyone for the first day, I would need that time to carefully remove the old system. He informed me they were not scheduled to depart anytime soon, but if an emergency happened and they needed to sail for the gulf I would have to go with the ship if I wasn’t finished with the installation. The captain was referring to the Gulf of Suez, the same Gulf the war was named after. This made me a bit nervous, but if the Navy needed the supplies on this ship they had to get them there.

“What cargo do you have?” I asked.

“Oh, we can’t tell you that” was the First Mate’s response.

“Is it classified or something?” I asked.

“Nope, if you know you won’t sleep tonight.”

“Why is that?” I stupidly asked.

“You won’t sleep because we carry Tomahawk and Cruise missiles and some have nuclear warheads. “

“Yikes!”

“Don’t worry, if one went off there is just this bright flash and well you won’t know a thing after that”

One of the other crew started laughing. “They can’t go off by accident.”

“NO, but the HE that sets them off can-let me show you to your cabin”.

With that, I was led down a ladder (never call them steps) and found my stuff in a comfortable cabin. Later as I was installing phones in the cargo bay, I figured out what the big music instrument-like cases must contain and I was standing right next to them. The funny thing was I didn’t worry about it. By the way, HE stands for high explosive. There were twelve ships in the harbor and they don’t anchor close to each other because if one has an HE problem they don’t want one exploding ship to take out the ones next to it.

Yikes.

End of part one.