Eight of us are struggling with a 2500-watt single cylinder gas generator to get it to the top of the hill. Four Koreans are helping us. The unit weighs 400 pounds. Later we get smarter. Hard work like this will get you smarter fast. After this we would separate the unit into three pieces, the motor, the generator, and the frame. Gas is carried in five-gallon cans. I am the one to the left with a cap. For most of my years in Korea every night at least one power unit is running to generate power to the radios. The power unit has enough gas for a little over two hours. So every two hours one to the topside men must wake up, go to the power units, start up a second unit, wait until it warms up, and then transfer the power via switch to the load. You then turn off the old unit refill it with gas, check the old unit, and almost always add some oil.

This is repeated every two hours every day, seven days a week. I was seldom aware of the day of the week, and most of the time what month is was. We were mostly tired and exhausted by the lack of a full nights rest. But we were young and resilient and the troops need our communications. Combat units relied on our communication facilities.    Hi-Res Pic (173K)