Sometimes the hardest part of serving in Vietnam wasn’t surviving the war—it was simply trying to call home.
This article is part of Brothers In Arms — stories of military service, Vietnam, brotherhood, sacrifice, survival, and the experiences veterans carry with them long after the war is over.
Today, many Marines deployed halfway around the world can pull a smartphone out of their pocket, tap FaceTime or WhatsApp, and be looking at his family’s faces within seconds.
In 1969, calling home from Vietnam felt like trying to contact another planet.
Most of us relied on something called the Military Auxiliary Radio System, better known as MARS.
MARS. Whoever named it had a sense of humor. From Vietnam, trying to call home in Missouri really did feel like trying to contact another planet.
It wasn’t a telephone network in the modern sense.
Military radio stations and volunteer amateur-radio operators worked together to connect service members overseas with their families back home.
Your voice might travel from Vietnam across the Pacific by radio, eventually reaching a volunteer ham operator in the United States who could connect the radio transmission to the regular telephone system.
It was ingenious.
It was also nothing like making a phone call today.
The process sounded almost impossible.
A military radio station in Vietnam would beam your voice across the Pacific Ocean by shortwave radio. Volunteer ham radio operators in places like Hawaii, Texas, California, or wherever the signal landed would receive it, then connect your call through the regular telephone system to your family back home.
The calls were free, but they came with plenty of limitations.
You waited in line—sometimes for hours.
You usually got only five or ten minutes.
Because everyone shared the same radio frequency, only one person could speak at a time. Every sentence ended with one word:
“Over.”
It felt silly saying it and half the time I forgot to and had to be reminded by the operator.
It wasn’t exactly the easiest way to have a conversation.
Finally, My Turn
One day in Da Nang in 1969, after waiting what felt like forever, my name was finally called.
I slipped on the headset while the MARS operator began making the connection.
Somewhere out there, my voice bounced across the Pacific Ocean through a chain of radio operators until, hopefully, a telephone began ringing in my hometown of Florissant, Missouri.
My heart was pounding.
I hadn’t spoken to my mother in months.
Finally, someone answered.
“Hello?”
It wasn’t my mother.
It was a young babysitter.
“This is Margie’s son Richard calling from Vietnam… over.”
Silence.
Then she replied,
“Yeah, right! Who’s playing this cruel joke?”
I tried again.
“No… really. It’s Richard… calling from Vietnam… over.”
She wasn’t buying it.
Apparently “over” wasn’t helping my credibility.
I spent almost my entire precious MARS call trying to convince this poor young girl that I really was Richard, calling all the way from Vietnam.
She never did sound convinced.
As my time expired, I honestly don’t think she believed a single word I said.
That was my one shot at using MARS.
I never got another chance.
At the time it was incredibly disappointing.
Looking back nearly sixty years later, it’s actually pretty funny.
A Second Chance
Fortunately, fate eventually gave me another chance to call home—and the way it happened was almost as unlikely as the MARS call itself.
Earlier in my life, I had helped save the life of my friend Parke Wright on Tampa Bay.
The whole unlikely chain of events started years earlier on Tampa Bay, when Parke Wright got into trouble in the water and I happened to be there and was credited for saving him from drowning.
I told that story in The Longfellow Mafia: Saving Parke Wright on Tampa Bay.
Parke was the son of Maria Lykes Wright, a member of the Lykes family whose name was behind the Lykes shipping empire.
His father was president of the Lykes meat company.
Parke’s parents never forgot what I had done for their only son.
While I was in Vietnam, they regularly sent me care packages filled with Lykes food products, canned hams, cheeses and other goodies from home. That made me a pretty popular guy in my unit, because whatever they sent, I shared with the other Marines.
But then the Lykes family did something I never expected.
One of their cargo ships, the Maria Lykes, was coming into Da Nang Harbor.
Parke’s family instructed the captain to find me.
Think about that for a moment.
I’m a twenty-year-old Marine serving in Vietnam, and somewhere along the chain of command comes word that the captain of an American cargo ship sitting in Da Nang Harbor is looking for me.
The captain eventually found me, invited me aboard the Maria Lykes, and hosted me for dinner in his cabin.
Then came the part that mattered most.
He gave me access to the ship’s radio room so I could call home.
After my one and only MARS call had been spent arguing with a babysitter who thought I was pulling some kind of cruel prank, I finally got another chance to hear the voices of the people I loved.
And this time, my mother answered the phone!
From “Over” to FaceTime
It’s difficult to explain to someone who grew up with smartphones just how isolated a service member overseas could once feel.
In Vietnam, you might wait hours for a five-minute conversation. Other people could hear it. Only one person could talk at a time. You ended every thought with “over.”
And after all that waiting, you still had to hope somebody answered the telephone.
Today, a deployed Marine with an internet connection may be able to see his family, exchange photographs, send messages and even watch a child’s birthday party from halfway around the world.
In 1969, just hearing my mother’s voice would have been enough.
I didn’t even get that far.
I got the babysitter.
That same divide between the world we grew up in and the one we live in now is something I explored in Life Before Smartphones.
Looking Back
The funny part of my story isn’t that the babysitter thought someone was playing a prank.
The funny part is that I spent my entire phone call trying to prove I was me.
At twenty years old, halfway around the world in a war zone, all I wanted was to hear my mother’s voice and let her know I was still alive.
Instead, I got into an argument with a babysitter.
It wasn’t what I had planned.
But after all these years, it’s become one of my funniest Vietnam memories.
Sometimes the stories that make us laugh the hardest are the ones that disappointed us the most at the time.
🗣️ Brothers in Arms Reflection
When I think about that call today, what strikes me most is how much military life has changed.
We didn’t have smartphones. We didn’t have email. We didn’t have FaceTime. Sometimes months could pass without hearing the voice of someone you loved.
But I don’t think the young Marine has changed very much.
Whether he’s sitting at Dong Ha in 1969 waiting for a MARS operator or somewhere overseas today looking for an internet connection, he still wants the same thing:
To hear a familiar voice.
At twenty years old, halfway around the world in a war zone, all I wanted was to hear my mother’s voice and let her know I was still alive.
In 1969, it would require military radios, volunteer ham operators, hours of waiting and a little luck.
And getting the baby sitter on a call home from Vietnam might have elicited a frustrated phrase we Marines used that could communicate frustration, resignation, acceptance, disgust, dark humor, or the realization that the green machine had once again decided to do something stupid.
As I describe in my post Before “Whatever,” There Was “There It Is”
Today it might require nothing more than tapping a screen.
I’m glad today’s Marines have it easier.
I just hope whoever answers believes it’s really them.
🗣️ Your Turn
If you served overseas before smartphones, email and video calls, how did you stay in touch with the people back home?
Did you ever use MARS, write letters that took weeks to arrive, or wait in line for a precious few minutes on a telephone?
And even if you never served, do you remember when a long-distance phone call was something special—when hearing the voice of someone hundreds or thousands of miles away actually felt like an event?
I’d especially like to hear from other Vietnam veterans who used MARS. Did your call go better than mine?
Finish this sentence:
“The phone call from long ago that I still remember was __________.”
Leave your memory in the comments.
And if a babysitter answers, make sure she knows you’re really you.
📚 Continue Exploring
The phone call home was only one small part of the Vietnam experience. Here are more stories about the music, memories, training, and experiences that stayed with us long after the uniform came off.
🎵 The Soundtrack of Vietnam — What We Really Listened To
The songs that came through radios, tape players, and Armed Forces Radio—and became permanently connected to a generation’s memories of Vietnam.
🇺🇸 When Vietnam Finally Came Home
For many Vietnam veterans, coming home from the war didn’t necessarily mean leaving Vietnam behind.
🦅 Boot Camp Legends — Vol. 1
The characters, moments, and Marine Corps memories that became the stories we would still be telling decades later.
🎖️ Back to the Corps
A personal journey back into the memories, traditions, and brotherhood that never completely leave a Marine.
🦅 Return to the Brothers In Arms Hub
Explore the complete collection of stories about Vietnam, the Marine Corps, military service, brotherhood, PTSD, and the experiences that followed us home.
⚠️ Bunker Rule
Veterans are welcome to compare memories of MARS calls, letters from home, care packages, field phones, radio operators, and all the other ways we tried to stay connected before anyone had ever heard of FaceTime.
Your experience may have been different from mine. Different units, different years, different locations, and different circumstances produced different memories.
Disagree, correct a detail, or tell us how it worked where you were. That’s part of preserving these stories.
Just remember—we’re swapping memories here, not conducting a Senate hearing.
And if somebody says he’s calling from Vietnam, at least give the poor guy a chance before you hang up on him.
📌 Bunker Notice
This article combines historical information about the Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) with my personal memories of serving in Vietnam in 1969.
The conversation with the babysitter, my attempt to reach my mother, the care packages from Parke Wright’s family, and my later visit aboard the Maria Lykes are events as I remember them more than half a century later.
After that much time, exact wording and small details can fade. I’ve tried to tell the story faithfully without pretending that a memory from 1969 is a verbatim transcript.
What I remember most clearly is the part that mattered.
I had one precious opportunity to call home from Vietnam—and spent almost the entire thing trying to convince a babysitter that I was really me.
Nearly sixty years later, I can finally laugh about it.