DCC & ASA
by Dennis Cullinan
at the 14th 1962-1964
DCC & ASA
As I look back on my days in the Army Security Agency, it seems they were an extension of my adolescent, high school life. After all, I was a mere month into my marriage when I enlisted, and until I married (at age 20) I lived with my parents. The eight weeks of basic training at Fort Leonard Wood were so filled with learning to be a soldier that I had barely a chance to be homesick. Halfway through Basic my wife came for a weekend conjugal visit.
Once I married, I looked at my situation and saw much that was not good. I had two years of junior college under my belt, but was working a full-time graveyard shift at a plastics molding factory. Men on either side of my press, with twenty years on the job, were earning only a few dollars more than I. Also, at that time the Army was drafting married men, so I knew in a couple years I'd be called up anyway; I might as well enlist.
I had grown up an Air Force brat, so I visited the Air Force recruiter and got the full-bore sales pitch. I almost signed up on the spot, for a four-year hitch, but I thought it might be amusing to raise false hopes in the Army recruiter. Well, not only did he offer a three-year hitch, but their current slogan was "Choice, not Chance", and one of the choices he mentioned was the Army Language School. I was neutral about learning languages, but as a newlywed I liked the sound of a year in Monterey CA. So, for the sake of an extended honeymoon, I enlisted in the Army.
DCC & ASA
Part Two
My second day at Fort Leonard Wood, right after my designer haircut, I filed into a large room and took a battery of tests, one of which involved an artificial language that reminded me of freshman Latin under Fr Daniel McGuire, SJ. I must have done well on the test, because I was given a list of the 30-some-odd languages the Army offered, from which I was to select my favorites. My first choice was Russian, reasoning I was not likely to be sent to Russia. German and French filled out my top three. I'm guessing that Korean was in my bottom three, yet that's what I got.
At the Presidio of Monterey I was one of six GI students in a small classroom. Our faculty were three well-educated Korean emigres, who came at us one by one, an hour at a time. For four weeks we had no printed course materials. Instead, the teacher chattered away in Korean for an hour. Then a different teacher came in and chattered away in Korean for another hour. Same for the third hour, after which we had a two hour lunch break. Afternoons brought three more hours of teachers chattering in Korean. Eventually we got textbooks, but they were written in Korean only.
But after forty-seven weeks, six hours a day, five days a week, we learned the Korean language.
We were sent, after graduation, to advanced training near Petaluma. My only memory of that training is that I didn't do very well. Soon we were flying out of Travis AFB to the Orient, some to Korea, others to Japan. I never made it to Korea myself, so I can't really compare, but I feel lucky to have been stationed at Brady for my final fifteen months in the Army.
DCC & ASA
Part Three
Doing the Job
At work I was a Korean cryptolinguist. For the whole tour I worked days. In the Ops building I'd pass the rooms where the 058s were tapping away at their mills, and wonder how they could bear doing that eight hours per shift. But in my experience they were no more given to heavy drinking than the guys in my MOS.
The mechanics of my job was like doing a word game, and it was both challenging and fun. The worst part was the thick cigarette smoke and the fact there were no windows in the building.
Thanks to the Japanese nationals on the post, life off duty was pretty easy. A houseboy kept my shoes shined, the bed made, and my clothes laundered for a pittance, although I'd guess they themselves were satisfied with the arrangement. We pulled no KP or guard duty. I vaguely recall firing a carbine at a range once, and that may have been at Brady.
But the biggest impact the Army made on my life at the 14th occurred when I first reported to the orderly room on arrival. I'd planned to bring my family over, and I inquired about how to go about it. I was told that over the weekend the big cheese of the Far East Command had decreed that only E-6 personnel and above would be permitted to have their dependents with them. Then and there I resolved never to re-enlist. The news was a bombshell back home when my wife got the news. For the next fifteen months my daily letters home dwelt in some degree on the unjust separation the Army imposed on us. Accordingly, I was not the carefree GI I saw in so many of my ASA friends. I wasn't in high school anymore.
Dennis c. Cullinan
1002 West Ionia St.
Lansing, MI 48915
