Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
Memorial Day is a time to reflect and express our gratitude for the service men and women who sacrificed their lives for freedom; and to reflect on the lasting impressions those individuals have made on the communities they loved and lived in.
At the annual Arbovale Cemetery Association’s Memorial Service Sunday, the community gathered to share those reflections and to honor the memories of service men and women, as well as their own loved ones.
Guest speaker Terry Gett, a U.S. Army veteran, recognized all the groups of people to be remembered.
“First of all, and foremost, we’re here to remember and honor the U.S. Military personnel who have died while serving in the United States armed forces,” he said. “That includes all such personnel beginning with the Continental Army, authorized by Congress in 1775, and with all of the military services of the U.S. since then up through the present day. Those men and women made the ultimate sacrifice while serving to protect and defend our nation, our liberty, our individual freedoms, and our very way of life. To those men and women, we are eternally grateful.
“We especially remember with love and appreciation those friends and loved ones who have passed on during the last year and have been interred in the Arbovale Cemetery,” he added.
As he discussed the history of Memorial Day and the many ways it is celebrated across the country, Gett mentioned Grafton, which has had a Memorial Day parade since 1868. He asked Dunmore resident JoAnn Fromhart to share her memories of the parade.
Fromhart remembers that all school children were part of the parade, with the girls carrying bouquets of flowers and the boys carryings American Flags. They paraded to the National Cemetery in Grafton where they placed the flowers and flags on the 1,000 graves.
Memorial Day was founded as a way to honor fallen soldiers and was first observed in 1868 when it was known as Decoration Day. Although it has grown to be a day to remember all lost loved ones, it is more a time to reflect on all the men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces.
Gett himself joined the U.S. Army in January 1970, just ahead of the draft.
“You see, I overslept and missed a draft physical exam,” he said. “They move you right to the top of the draft list for doing that. To make a long story a little shorter, when I went to be inducted, they pulled me aside and offered me an ‘opportunity.’ They wanted me to join some ‘hush-hush’ outfit. There would be special training and other good things, but I’d have to sign up for two more years of service. And, oh by the way, I wouldn’t go to Vietnam. I volunteered.”
The “hush-hush” outfit turned out to be the ASA – Army Security Agency. It was the Army’s part of the National Security Agency, better known as the NSA.
“You see, the NSA is under the Department of Defense,” Gett explained. “It’s military. It’s mostly civilian employees, but it’s military. And it’s not like you see on TV. No black suits, guns and covert, clandestine spy stuff. Well, not much anyway. It’s mostly geeks, or nerds, or whatever. They get to play with – ‘operate’ – the far-out, fancy, classified electronics and computers.
“They call us Spooks and we kind of think that’s cool,” he added.
Gett was sent to Electronic Warfare and Electronic Intelligence Schools. After that was complete, everyone was sent to field stations in places like Turkey, Ethiopia, Thailand, Australia and in the United States in places like Vint Hill Farms, Virginia; Two Rock Ranch, California; and even Sugar Grove, West Virginia.
Gett was sent to Shemya, Alaska.
“It’s the next to the last island out in the Aleutian chain off of Alaska,” he said. “Almost to Russia. The island is two miles by four miles, and flat. You could stand outside and see water on all sides around you.”
Fifteen hundred men lived on the island, 150 of whom were Army personnel. The rest were Air Force. Gett said they were told there were women behind every tree. Unfortunately, there were no trees on Shemya.
Everything Gett worked on during his time at Shemya was classified. That is, until January of this year. There is a federal regulation that states all classified items become unclassified after 50 years.
“Well, almost everything,” he said, laughing.
“We had worldwide touchtone long distance phones – secure phones with end-to-end encryption for classified conversations,” he continued.
“Real-time worldwide secure communications by voice, teletype and other ways, as well.”
When asked what he did at Shemya, Gett said he would tell people, “oh, we played cards and listened to the radio” which he says was not far from the truth.
“The work I was involved in was all highly-classified at the time and was part of a project codenamed ANDERS,” he said. “It was a joint Army and Air Force facility that operated a one-of-a-kind ground-based tele- metry data collection system codenamed HARDBALL.”
According to a now unclassified book from the NSA library, Gett said HARDBALL was used to collect data from Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that impacted in the Soviet Kamchatka peninsula test range impact area, as well as collect data from Soviet military satellites that sent data to Soviet telemetry receiving locations in the far eastern land area of the Soviet Union.
“We coordinated with other facilities worldwide in real-time 24/7 through the Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center located in NSAs headquarters at Ft. Mead, Maryland,” Gett said. “In God We Trust, all the others, we monitor.”
Reflecting on his time with the ASA, Gett said the Army found the right place to utilize his skills during his service time.
“All things considered, I guess the Army truly did know what they were doing when they sent me to the Army Security Agency instead of Vietnam,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been of any real use to them in Vietnam and probably would have done something dumb and gotten shot. But, putting me in that outfit, with that training, gave me the opportunity to be of real service to my country during the Cold War. I’m grateful to have had the chance to do that.”
Technology has changed a lot since then and Gett continued his “nerd” ways by being a computer technician with his daughter-in-law Christine Rebinski and their business Computers-R-Us. Although he has left the business now to be fully retired, he continues to use technology on a regular basis.
“I teach a Sunday School class – adult Bible study – on Sunday mornings over Zoom on the Internet,” he said. “Class members join in live video conferencing from several states – from Ohio to Florida, and states in between. We have a great time. It’s a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which created the need. The Internet and Zoom are the tools. We’ve been meeting for more than three years now and will continue for who knows how long.
“The world is very different now,” he added.
Memorial Day is a day to remember the past, but it’s also important to be cognizant of the present and those who are continuing the fight for freedom around the world.
The mission continues,” Gett said. “Men and women in our armed forces around the world continue to serve diligently to protect our freedom. And so, friends, let us remember, as a grateful nation, and show our appreciation for the honorable and faithful service of those who have died while serving in our armed forces, as well as all those who have served in the armed forces and are no longer with us.
The Memorial Day service also included special music by Jim Anderton and Carolyn Sheets, as well as a presentation of memorial flowers for those who have been interred at Arbovale Cemetery since Memorial Day 2022.
Those remembered were: Amy Copen, Wallace Simmons, William Gowan, Audrea Gown, Juanita Filuta, Jessie Lambert, Irene Small, Robert Burner, Zona Hoover, Wayne Sheets, Richard “Dick” Brockway, Nell “Dee” Gett, Deborah Oberle, William Oberle, Danny Lambert, Norine Simmons, Betty Oxier, Betty Woodrum, Dorothy Coleman, Karen Varner, Brenda Gragg, Charles Taylor, Sylvia Thompson and Kathryn Hedrick.
After the service, the congregation moved to the Arbovale Cemetery for the Pocahontas County Veterans Honor Corps’ 21-gun salute and the playing of Taps.