Big Brother Does Not Have a Sense of Humor

Big Brother Does Not Have a Sense of Humor

My main job in Okinawa was working on teletype machines.  These machines carried very important, classified messages back to United States.  The folks on the other end rarely had a sense of humor.

One night I received a call from the Operations Center.  They had a broken teletype and it was imperative that this unit be fixed as soon as possible.  I went to the area and asked that the unit be taken off line, for troubleshooting. 

When my contact told me it had been taken care of, I started testing and adjusting the unit.  This was an unusual type of teletype and it was trickier than most to work on.  I would make adjustments and then do tests, such as "The quick brown fox ..." or "Now is the time ...."

While I worked on the unit another problem come up.  Another technician, Les, arrived and offered to work on the teletype, while I worked on the other problem.  He asked if I had had the unit taken offline, and I answered "Of Course." 

Once the other item was taken care of I went back to relieve Les.  When I walked up he was typing some rather interesting test messages.  I laughed and asked what he was doing.  He said he got bored with the regular tests and decided to have some fun.  I soon finished the unit and headed back to the shop, to wait for our relief.

When I arrived the next day, Chief Pulaski, called me into his office.  He asked "Did you and Les work on the Ops Center unit last night?" 

"Yes, Chief." 

"Did you type anything unusual?" 

I laughed "No, Chief" 

"Did Les?" 

"You would have to ask him, Chief."

The Chief called Les in, and he admitted to it all.  Instead of taking the unit out of the loop, all the operator had done was send a message stating that it was being worked on. 

It appears that at about 2:00 in the morning, a tired, and irritable, Lt. Peterson at the distant end was reading traffic, when he saw "If you are reading this you are a dumbass."  He didn't see the humor.

The Chief put out a memo stating that we could only use approved test messages after that.