All Hands --
This is a copy of an email I sent out to my Bluehawk squadron mates after 7H1B closed down at 2359Z 30 SEP 2015, the last NAVMARCORMARS traffic net in the state of Missouri and perhaps in the entire NAVMARCORMAR organization:
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Today is the last day of operation of Navy-Marine Corps MARS. MARS is an acronym for Military Auxiliary Radio System. For years MARS stations in war zones and forward deployment areas allowed service men and women to make a phone patch back the states to talk to friends and family. When emails and cell phones became ubiquitous, the health and welfare roles of MARS died.
Tonight, the NAVMARCORMARS Director for the State of Missouri controlled the net for the last time. Mike is a retired E-9 Master Chief submariner, and he closed the net with a sentimental recitation of the litany heard on the 1MC (ship's announcing system) when a ship comes into port and ties up to a pier and secures (shuts down) all of the systems. He could not get through it without stopping to regain his self-control.
It was my last time to use my Navy MARS call NNNØAKI. As Mike put it, "Eight sideboys to the quarterdeck. Ring the ship's bell eight times (in doublets), NAVMARCORMARS departing.”
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I am now a member of AFMARS. I chose the bluesuiter branch of MARS because they fly single seat jets albeit newer aircraft than the Douglas A-4E Skyhawks I flew in Vietnam with the VA-72 Bluehawks.