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I went to an Army Surplus store and bought four U.S. Army Field Telephones. Alex Kritzky ('61)*, Chester Quinn ('62) and myself talked Col W. Smith into letting us have a two hobby rooms in the upper floors of Allen House. We strung antenna wire all over the top of the building and had a Ham type radio receiver. There was one phone in the hobby room, one in what became the OD's room in a closet to the right on a common wall with Gen. Futch's office. This is the one with the bad butterfly switch that stayed open some times. There was a phone in my room in Friendly Hall and the other in Alex Kritzky's room near the rear of New Brick. During the day no one could move without being detected as there was always one of us on CQ or OD. If we were not on those post we, as Officers, had a heavy hand on the CQ and if he wanted to live he had better go in the closet and turn the crank and tell us Gen. Futch or the other faculty or staff were on the move. In return we let him know when Mr. Yancey or Lt. Clinkscales were coming his way from our end of the campus.

Yes, the office door was locked from time to time, but Alex Kritzky was the lock hound. Most of the locks on campus were made by BEST and he had several masters and a pick. He seemed to have a key to everything on campus. I do not think there was anything safe from us. If you wanted us to look at it all you had to do was put a lock on it.

Alex Kritzky and Chester Quinn made good grades so they were allowed to go to the hobby rooms in the evening during study hall. At those times the hobby rooms served as a lookout post as they could see the lower gate by Col. Johnson's House. It seems that I always had to go to the Tallapoosa Hall Library to for supervised study hall at night. (Bad grades would get you there).

When Quinn would leave Allen House he would throw a switch that put the Chicago radio station WLS on the pair of wires going to the field phones. After Taps we could talk over the level of the radio audio or just hear the station. The DJ's name was Dick Biondie and he had a song about meatballs falling off of spaghetti.

Bottom line - No surprise inspections and if you got caught smoking in Friendly Hall it is because you were a retard, because my roommate or I would open our door and make an announcement the dead could hear.

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NOTES:

* Alex Kritzky had an older brother, William, who graduated in 1960. I used Alexander's full name to be sure there would be no confusion.

Alexander Kritzky and Lamar Hall (another cadet) were killed in a motorcycle accident near Opelika, Alabama in the spring of 1961.

This story is dedicated to the memories of Alexander Kritzky ('61), Lamar Hall ('61), Chester P. Quinn ('62), and Robert Ingram ('63).

Robert was not in this story, but I will always remember him as a loyal friend.

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