Camp David Communications Detachment (Cactus 1965- 1967)-revised

Camp David Communications Detachment
Gov’t housing at Camp David (2009)
Type Of Activity	Experiences while at Camp David
Location
Location	Thurmont MD
Date of Activity	Nov 1965 to Jun 1970
Coordinates	33°49′26″N 116°31′49″W

November 1965 to March 1967 the Camp David Communications Detachment (Cactus)

It was November of 1965 when my experiences with WHCA began, I was assigned to Cactus which was the codename for the microwave installation at Camp David, and I would also work at another microwave location near Mercersburg Pa.  This site was known as Cannonball and was a microwave relay station.  I would travel to Cannonball for a week at a time and spent a total of eleven weeks there over a year’s period of time.  This worked out very well because in March of 1967 I was transferred permanently to Cannonball.

We rented an apartment in the Homestead apartments in Blue Ridge Summit Pa., that was next to the Post Office. The entrance to the apartment is pictured below to the left of the Post Office. We only lived there for a short period of time until Government Housing at Camp David became available.

The Old Post office in Blue Ridge Summit Pa

Behind the old Blue Ridge Summit, USPS Office there was a two-story white house pictured in the background was a WHCA rental where Don Cammel lived for over 3 years. Don remembers that there were four single WHCA guys, and they convinced Mrs. Warrenfeltz, (Warrenfeltz Realty in Cascade) to rent to four single military guys. She dealt with a lot of Ft Ritchie folks and was cautious, but the owner Robley Brown met with three of them and they convinced him they would take care of his property. He was a great landlord, if they wanted to paint or upgrade a room, and he would supply the materials. The rent was to include lawncare where he would come cut the grass and trimming. They all used the lawnmower which he kept in garage, and he lowered the rent by $25 a month in the summer. The garage was not usable for a car, but they were able to store a lot of "stuff" in there....remember a few Bell Boxes as storage containers for treasures. Back porch had a spare refrigerator for the beer drinkers with an "Honor Coffee Can" on the top. The local beer distributor would stop every two weeks and leave a few cases and take money out of the can and leave a receipt.

Across the street from Mrs Warrenfeltz Realty (her office was in a converted back porch) there was a liquor store right on the State Line between MD and PA. The prices competed with the Fort Ritchie Class VI store. The PA State Police would watch people coming out the front gate of Fort Ritchie and stop and liquor store. Drive ½ miles toward Blue Ridge Summit and then stop them. Pennsylvania law was very strict on "Out of State" liquor, only 1 or 2 bottles of Federal Taxed booze could be brought into PA, and they also only allowed 399 cigarettes without State Tax Stamps. That meant if a Military person purchased two cartons of cigarettes and did not open one pack and smoke at least one, they were illegal and would confiscate the tobacco products and access a heavy fine. One soldier, knew the drill, opened a pack and smoke one, but forgot he had an open pack in his jacket pocket! After about 2 years of battle, they backed off, but clearly, they were picking on Military people living in area. 

Roger Zabkie told me a story that around 1959 or 1960 he and another sergeant were ringing out a newly installed lead-shielded cable. Since it was not color-coded the technique was to terminate one end on a frame then ring out the other end pair by pair. About halfway through the procedure they began getting strange results, so they started walking along the cable’s path from the tower down to the switchboard room, where the main distribution frame was located, eyeballing the cable to try to determine the problem.

The cable was laced down on a Western Electric tray from the mainframe to where it disappeared into a passageway on its way to the tower. The tray was almost as high as the concrete ceiling, behind the switchboard operating position, and there, right smack in the middle of one of the tray’s crossmembers, was a hole.

That’s a bullet hole, says the sergeant. Can’t be said Roger. But he, being a veteran of WWII and Korea, knew a bullet hole when he saw one. How could a bullet hole have penetrated a steel cable tray and a lead-shielded cable there in one of the most secure pieces of real estate in the country?

Well there was a loaded M2 carbine mounted on the wall next to the switchboard, ready to defend a very secure  facility from who knows.

As the story eventually came out, a bored young switchboard operator was killing time on a slow Sunday afternoon by fondling the carbine. When the switchboard lit up, he set the butt down on the floor and the gun fired a round into the ceiling. He tried to hide the event and might have gotten away with it except for the defective cable, as well as that he was overheard talking about it in his sleep a week or two after our discovery. 

He was of course shipped out to a new assignment as was the practice of any WHCA indiscretions. And the carbine was subsequently relocated to the crypto room with the other firearms.

Don Cammel has an early memory of life at Camp David. he arrived in 1967 and at that time, the 12 most junior personnel lived in a barracks arrangement on Camp David. It was not a traditional barracks or rooms, but one large room divided into 4 cubes with a series of dividers and wall lockers. There were 4 troops to each cube, with the 4th cube as the recreation room with television, pool table and other recreation items. He arrived with a duffle bag and a suitcase, his total possessions at that time, and didn't own a car. Anytime anyone was going anywhere off Camp, he would invite himself to ride along! There was lots of time to use the other recreational facilities after hours and on weekends as long as there was not an "official" visit.

On one Saturday morning, he put on a straw hat to shield the sun, and walked out the "back gate". He  soon found himself in one of the largest patches of wild raspberries you could imagine. He discovered they were very sweet and ate quite a few. he then started collecting them in a plastic bag, with the overflow into his straw hat. It was very peaceful, and suddenly, he was approached by an older couple. The attitude was, he was infringing on their "private patch" of wild raspberries, and Oh, by the way, you shouldn't be in this area! Very friendly folks.

The man pulled out a large Motorola radio and was ready to call to have them dispatch Marine Guards to escort me to the road. The man told him that he needed a pass to be in the area, to which he reached in his pocket and produced his Camp David pass. he had only been there about 2 weeks and had not met everyone. This was his first introduction to SGM Victor Shorten and his wife. Vic was the current SGM for DCSU. Don took probably about 4 quarts of fresh raspberries back to the barracks and turned them into the Mess Hall and they had fresh raspberries the next couple days. SGM Shorten laughed about our incident later, but at the time, he was really upset someone was poaching his "private" stake in the Catoctin National Park. He got over it, and Don had a good working relationship with the SGM for the rest of his career until he retired. Kind of funny, I never felt like I was risking my life to pick raspberries.

When I arrived in WHCA in 1965 and at that time COL Jack Albright was our Commander, (retired as a MG) and he brought with him, SGM Richard McCoy. The two of them looked at all the aging troops that had been there forever, and decided to start recruiting young troops like me directly out of their AIT training at the various schools. This effort was a huge risk, but turned out to work very well for several years. There are probably about 30-40 troops from that time period that stayed in WHCA for their entire career. Although we were all members of various branches, it was very rare to see one of our coworkers in uniform. Most folks with the exception of the Command HQS were on a first name basis and rarely addressed anyone by rank.

We were prohibited from displaying the standard Military vehicle sticker on our POV's? Most of our troops used the facilities at nearby Fort Ritchie and Fort Dietrick for Commissary/PX, and medical appointments. We had this very small gold and black sticker about 2" x ¾" with the words, "CAMP THREE" would be attached to your windshield behind the mirror. This was very difficult to view without really studying the vehicle. When approaching the sentry at the Main Gate, we often were delayed. Eventually the "Camp Three" stickers were replaced with traditional Military Base decals. The only difference was these were not affixed to our vehicles, but laminated and placed on the dash.

On the flip side, there was a statement that authorized the sticker to not be permanently attached to the vehicle. Many bases you would show it, and they were alert backup, and it was a long day.

This was the only time we were ever taken to an army post to qualify with any type of firearm.  It was the only time that I had the privilege to salute Mr. Fontaine because he was in uniform.  Two things I can remember happening, first we never qualified with a rifle again, and WHCA returned to a permanent assignment for those who chose to stay.

As I think back, there are so many old times that had some really specific jobs that kept them out of the front line with photo ops and airport arrivals, but they were all just as important. I think of the folks like me, and Terry Fields at Cannonball, Louie Bean at Corkscrew and Jim Hammond at Cowpuncher ran their own show and had an important job, but how do you explain you were assigned to the White House living in Mercersburg PA, or  Boonsboro, MD working on top of a mountain.

At that time WHCA was a tour unlike any other for most of us.  But the DCSU Missions asked our personnel to take on responsibilities encountered by very few Military personnel. As these National Missions & Threats evolved, our outstanding DCSU personnel evolved with them and routinely performed significant Emergency Actions with little regard for their (and family) personal situations. How we took it all for granted while serving...a proud Hand Salute to my former Comrades who served in DCSU, the Detachments, the COG sites and the CCTs of the early 70’s.

When Det 3 from Cadre/Creed qualified Don Cammel remembered that he was proud of his score of 141, the highest of any of DCSU's finest. All the raw scores were turned into the Admin section and they discovered that you needed 140 to qualify. He was the only person that qualified. Real problem here...so they administratively added 40 points to everyone's score at DCAU so they would all qualify and printed the Orders. his score was not changed. Fast forward about a month, and he got called in by MAJ John F. DuGuay, the DCSU CDR and was told that he was being sent to the FBI indoor range in DC for remedial training. Of course after a couple of months nothing happened, and he never went for his remedial training.

Over the years we had loads of fun with the air transport crews and sky marshals all because we were carrying concealed weapons against air travel regulations.  With every other flight being hijacked to Cuba, I can understand why they were so touchy.

We lived in the off-site Quarters at Camp David for over a year in 66/67.  We referred to these quarters as the wagon wheel, WHCA personnel consisted of four enlisted guys living there, as well as the CO of DCSU who Maj. Duguay the rest was all U.S. Navy personnel.  They were pretty nice for Government Quarters and fairly new at the time, we lived in unit 6A and at the time there were ten units built in a circle.  Only E-5 and above were eligible and you waited for openings based on rank.  Foxville Gardens is only about 2 miles from the front gate at Camp David.  Just up Manhattan Rd. from the Wagon Wheel used to be a trailer park that was also maintained by the Navy and available to anyone on a space available basis.

Shortly after we moved into housing at Camp David, our son Robert was born in Waynesboro, PA on April 28, 1966.

I remember back in 1966, when the permanent assignment in WHCA was rescinded and most of the old timers were either transferred or retired, Col Albright the new WHCA CO tried to make it a military organization again. Someone decided that everyone needed to qualify with the M-14.  Now some of these guys had not been on a true military base for years, and I am sure that some were issued brown boots and Eisenhower jackets.  Anyway we were scheduled to qualify at the Fort Meade rifle range.  I have never seen any group of people look so funny in uniform. If you ever wanted to have a good laugh, you should have seen some of the old timers qualifying with the M-14.  Jim Hammond from Copper/Cowpuncher (a great guy) couldn't find all of his uniform, so he wore what he could find.  They wore whatever they could find of their uniforms, if they couldn't find a web belt they wore a leather civilian belt, no chevrons, name tags or proper hat, no problem they wore what they could find! 

This was the only time we were ever taken to an army post to qualify with any type of fire arm.  It was the only time that I had the privilege to salute Mr. Fontaine because he was in uniform.  Two things I can remember happening, first we never qualified with a rifle again, and WHCA returned to a permanent assignment for those who chose to stay.

There was a pistol range at the back of Camp David; we qualified with 38 cal. pistols at that range.  When I took over at Cannonball I became the Site Crypto Custodian, which meant that I had to qualify with the 38.   Over the years we had loads of fun with the air transport crews and sky marshals all because we were carrying concealed weapons against air travel regulations.  With every other flight being hijacked to Cuba, I can understand why they were so touchy.

Shortly after we moved into housing at Camp David, our son Robert was born in Waynesboro, PA on April 28, 1966.  

We lived in the off-site Quarters at Camp David for over a year in 66/67.  We referred to these quarters as the wagon wheel, WHCA personnel consisted of four enlisted guys living there, as well as the CO of DCSU who was Maj. DuGay the rest were all U.S. Navy personnel.  They were pretty nice for Government Quarters and fairly new at the time, we lived in unit 6A and at the time there were ten units built in a circle.  Only E-5 and above were eligible and you waited for openings based on rank.  Foxville Gardens is only about 2 miles from the front gate at Camp David.  Just up Manhattan Rd. from the Wagon Wheel used to be a trailer park that was also maintained by the Navy and available to anyone on a space available basis.

Christmas (1966) Joanne and Don

 Don and Bob, Christmas (1966)

Don at the kids Christmas party at Camp David 

While we were living at Foxville Gardens we had legendary poker games with the single guy's on just about every Saturday night that there were no visitors up at the Camp David.  Joanne was the only female that was allowed to play, as she supplied all the eats, and she adopted Chuck Duvall and Dale Anderson, but the guys would bring the beer and we would play into the wee hours of the morning.  Funny thing, the more we drank the more Joanne (a Pepsi drinker) would win, Go figure!  I am sure that everyone thought we were alcoholics by the cases of empty beer cans that were in the trash on Monday morning.

The games tailed off when we moved to LeMasters and the guys either got married or were discharged, but the poker games continued in San Clemente and Key Biscayne with the guys and pinochle when we socialized with the families.  Cards passed a lot of time for us, and it was a very enjoyable way to get to know the people that you worked with.  They did like to party.

When I returned home from Punta Del Este in March of 1967 we relocated to PA where I would be assigned to a microwave relay facility  known as Cannonball as the NCOIC.

16 Jan 67 to Washington DC -Howard University CBR Training

I was getting ready to relocate to Le Masters PA when I was sent to Silver Springs MD to a training class that was at Howard University. This class was being conducted by the Civil Defense Department to instruct us on the detection, prevention or treatment of Chemical, Biological, or Radioactive (CBR) substances. This training was imperative as I would be responsible for all activities at Cannonball Tower. I did learn how to properly use and maintain Geiger counters, gas masks and the proper ways to decontaminate equipment and personal should we were ever exposed to any of these substances. 

The Decon Shower at Cannonball

Cannonball did have Decon a station at the entrance of the tower, where contaminated equipment and clothing could be disposed of and showers for personnel to decontaminate prior to entering.

 Radiation Detection Package

                                          

Entrance to CD Emergency Ops. Center

The class also spent a day at the Washington DC Civil Defense Emergency Operations Center operated by the D.C. Office of Emergency Management located at the Lorton VA Youth Correctional Facility. We received a detailed overview of how the WHCA microwave network could accommodate any emergency Presidential address into the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) using Mt Weather as the interface. While I was in class I was notified that I would be assigned to support President Johnson on an upcoming trip to a Conference of American States in Punta Del Este Uruguay in March of 1967.

26 Feb 67 to Washington DC-HF Radio Training

In preparation of the upcoming trip to Punta Del Este I was sent to Cartwheel for a week of operational training the TMC-750 single sideband (SSB) transmitter, and the R-390/CV-157 single sideband (SSB) receiver and converter. This included ancillary TTY and Voice equipment necessary to communicate with Air Force One (AF-1) and other WHCA locations working on this particular trip.

SSB Radio Console with TTY interface

SSB TMC 750 Transmitter

The Single Sideband (SSB) console was equipped with two R390-A receivers, two CV-157 SSB converters with audio patch panel for all upper sideband (USB) voice traffic with phone patch capabilities and lower sideband (LSB) TTY traffic. All TTY circuits had associated frequency shift keying (FSK) equipment with a DC patch panel and would easily connect to the Cryptographic equip in the Commcenter.

The TMC-GPT-750 was a 1KW transmitter and was installed in all of the towers and used primarily for support on overseas trips.

When I returned home from Punta Del Este in March of 1967 we relocated to PA where I would be assigned to a microwave relay facility  known as Cannonball as the NCOIC.