I can confirm the worldwide 700+ bases, at least in the past. I was a switchboard operator, running a PBX at a Nike HQ Battery outside Cleveland, OH in 1969 and 1970 and had access to the military's Autovon network and the "phone book" for calling all the other bases. At that time the number was in excess of 700. I counted them, but don't recall the exact number. I was flabbergasted!
There are bases none of us have ever heard of, and many of them.
An aside, about phones...
One of the perks for those who knew about the Autovon network then was that soldiers could be patched through and into the local civilian lines, meaning that a call from, say, Vietnam or Korea, could be a FREE call. This was in the days of Ma Bell, and long distance was exorbitantly expensive. So, it was a nice thing that was available - if a soldier knew about it, which the military was not open about. Seriously, very few soldiers ever called. We in Cleveland were completely in favor of passing their calls through.
In this day and age, of VOIP and calling packages that include free calls to western Europe, to all of Canada and to much of Mexico (Vonage and Skype are essentially free worldwide), it may seem amazing how difficult and expensive long-distance calling used to be.
I recall a phone call across the Mississippi River to St Louis University, in mid-town St Louis County, from my home in Cahokia, IL. My home was less than a mile from the river, less than 3 miles from the bridge, and was directly across from the Anheuser-Busch brewery on the near south side of St Louis city. This was in the summer of 1966. The call lasted less than 15 minutes and cost me over $6.00 - in 1966 dollars. An online calculator for 1966-2011 gives a current value of that $6.00 phone call of $42.02. That is $7.00/minute in today's money.
A long distance call from Vietnam, Iceland, Greenland, Alaska, Korea then? Forget it. Even in 1989, from a Pacific resort in Mexico took 45 minutes just to set up. For a <10 minute call, it was over $20.00, including hotel fee.
It all changed in the 1970s when MCI sued Bell for the rights to access their lines - and won $35 million (a huge sum back then). MCI had set up microwave towers as an improvement over land lines, and it worked. That is the same basic technology used today for most cell phone systems.
Aside #2: I knew an electrical engineer who worked for the "Long Lines" division of Bell. Years earlier, he had proposed the same system that MCI used, as a way for Bell to save the many millions they were spending yearly putting up wire phone lines. He proposed that they give everybody "black boxes" in their houses which would be transmitters/receivers. While it would have saved Bell beaucoup bucks, his suggestion was turned down. Why? They told him they would lose control over the phone system. In fact, that is exactly what happened!
And when did this engineer propose this? When could the technology have allowed us to have cell phones?
1950.
What would THAT have done to the history of technology, to have the cell phone 25 years earlier?
It's perhaps a cheating a bit to count Hawaii and Alaska - sure they're overseas, but they're bits of America proper, not someone else's patch. I presume the US would have to have bases there even if it weren't otherwise spread all over the globe.
Then again, the UK still have troops in Germany. Very hard to see why, these days.
this is cheating a little bit. some of those "bases" are tent cities with less than 50 individuals.
i agree that the US has better things to spend it's money on, but it annoys me when someone synopsizes complex facts into a convenient and familiar narrative.
So that's how the U.S. spends so darned much money.
ReplyDeleteI can confirm the worldwide 700+ bases, at least in the past. I was a switchboard operator, running a PBX at a Nike HQ Battery outside Cleveland, OH in 1969 and 1970 and had access to the military's Autovon network and the "phone book" for calling all the other bases. At that time the number was in excess of 700. I counted them, but don't recall the exact number. I was flabbergasted!
ReplyDeleteThere are bases none of us have ever heard of, and many of them.
An aside, about phones...
One of the perks for those who knew about the Autovon network then was that soldiers could be patched through and into the local civilian lines, meaning that a call from, say, Vietnam or Korea, could be a FREE call. This was in the days of Ma Bell, and long distance was exorbitantly expensive. So, it was a nice thing that was available - if a soldier knew about it, which the military was not open about. Seriously, very few soldiers ever called. We in Cleveland were completely in favor of passing their calls through.
In this day and age, of VOIP and calling packages that include free calls to western Europe, to all of Canada and to much of Mexico (Vonage and Skype are essentially free worldwide), it may seem amazing how difficult and expensive long-distance calling used to be.
I recall a phone call across the Mississippi River to St Louis University, in mid-town St Louis County, from my home in Cahokia, IL. My home was less than a mile from the river, less than 3 miles from the bridge, and was directly across from the Anheuser-Busch brewery on the near south side of St Louis city. This was in the summer of 1966. The call lasted less than 15 minutes and cost me over $6.00 - in 1966 dollars. An online calculator for 1966-2011 gives a current value of that $6.00 phone call of $42.02. That is $7.00/minute in today's money.
A long distance call from Vietnam, Iceland, Greenland, Alaska, Korea then? Forget it. Even in 1989, from a Pacific resort in Mexico took 45 minutes just to set up. For a <10 minute call, it was over $20.00, including hotel fee.
It all changed in the 1970s when MCI sued Bell for the rights to access their lines - and won $35 million (a huge sum back then). MCI had set up microwave towers as an improvement over land lines, and it worked. That is the same basic technology used today for most cell phone systems.
Aside #2: I knew an electrical engineer who worked for the "Long Lines" division of Bell. Years earlier, he had proposed the same system that MCI used, as a way for Bell to save the many millions they were spending yearly putting up wire phone lines. He proposed that they give everybody "black boxes" in their houses which would be transmitters/receivers. While it would have saved Bell beaucoup bucks, his suggestion was turned down. Why? They told him they would lose control over the phone system. In fact, that is exactly what happened!
And when did this engineer propose this? When could the technology have allowed us to have cell phones?
1950.
What would THAT have done to the history of technology, to have the cell phone 25 years earlier?
Very interesting, ...TD. Thanks for sharing that history (and confirming the data).
ReplyDeleteI slightly envy you the childhood in Cahokia and the opportunity that I hope you took advantage of, of exploring the mounds there.
It's perhaps a cheating a bit to count Hawaii and Alaska - sure they're overseas, but they're bits of America proper, not someone else's patch. I presume the US would have to have bases there even if it weren't otherwise spread all over the globe.
ReplyDeleteThen again, the UK still have troops in Germany. Very hard to see why, these days.
this is cheating a little bit. some of those "bases" are tent cities with less than 50 individuals.
ReplyDeletei agree that the US has better things to spend it's money on, but it annoys me when someone synopsizes complex facts into a convenient and familiar narrative.