Tiny Tim was the main communications center which handled both radio and teletype services between our remote outposts, Vientiane proper and Udorn Thani. There was a problem, and teletype traffic was mounting up and being unable to transmit. My air force colleague and I were called in to “fix the damn thing immediately”. Harold and I started at the communications center and determined all the radio and teletype equipment were fully functional. We traced the antenna leads to the exterior of the building and found them to be intact. We next checked the antenna coaxial cabling going up to the one hundred foot tri-ex tower and suspected a problem which we could not pinpoint without climbing the tower to test the cable and the antenna itself.
We sat on the tailgate of our “War Wagon” debating how we were going to climb the one hundred foot tower with no safety belt or climbing boots. Harold was not a climber, and I have always had this wicked fear of heights. Once I go beyond ten feet, I am useless. The communications officer kept hounding us every few minutes “Well, what’s the prognosis? Do you have a game plan?” he asked. Then “Teletype traffic is piling up, folks. We need to send it out ASAP.”
“Hey, climbing towers is not my specialty. I don’t do towers,” I informed him.
He replied “Well, then you’d better swim back across the river cause we sure can’t use you here!”
I said to Harold loud enough for asshole to hear, “Damn, is this asshole suggesting that I swim back across the Rio Grande? Is he suggesting I’m an illegal Mexican?”
As the asshole started walking back into his communications center, Harold said “No, dumbass! He’s suggesting you swim back across the Mekong to Udorn (Thailand). Besides, I am sure the asshole doesn’t even know you’re Mexican.”
Harold wanted to go back across town to our maintenance facility to bring back climbing belt and boots. I suggested that I could climb the tower and fix the cable or replace the antenna before he returned with the climbing equipment.
It’s amazing how we can so quickly overcome known inadequacies when the need arises. I overcame my fear of heights and grabbed the nylon rope we used to string antennas and began to ascend the one hundred foot tri-ex tower in my soft sole Hush Puppies. The arches of my feet were hurting something awful. I was totally focused on not looking down till I reached the top an eternity and a half later. Checking the integrity of the cable end connector, I noticed there was rust around the connector end, a sign of moisture entering the connector. I had to cut the remaining ties securing the cable to the tower then gently lowered the cable to Harold using the nylon rope. Using the free end of the nylon rope, I tied myself to the tower and got braver by the minute. I was actually enjoying a very beautiful view of the whole city of Vientiane while Harold was replacing the cable connector on the tailgate of our War Wagon.
Harold’s specialty was fabricating cables and replacing connectors, so he was done before I was done enjoying the view from the top. I then pulled the cable back up, connected it to the antenna and secured it to the tower. We were done in less than two hours, a feat which few could have matched. I had not even started the descend when asshole came out of the communications center shouting “Damn, you guys did it! We’re back on the air. Come over to my villa tonight. We’ll pop some beers.” With that, he ran back into the communications center.
Harold and I never collected on asshole’s beer. By the time we returned to our maintenance facility, our supervisor had already heard I had climbed the tower without a safety belt or climbing boots and got noticeably upset. “Do you know you could’ve slipped and fallen, Ojeda? That would’ve been the end of my career!”
I assured Gerald that it would not happen again. From that day forward, Gerald insisted we carry the climbing belt and climbing boots in the War Wagon on any jobs whether or not it involved climbing. Gerald was a worrier. He was just a number of months from retirement, and he wanted to leave the Air Force without a flaw in his perfect safety record.
©Copyright texan@atudemi.com - January 2022