One of the persistant legends of the Grenada Invasion was that several
times more medals were given out for that campaign than for people
actually invading the island. I had a peripheral (and not terribly
important) role in that invasion while in Washington all the time and
I got a medal for it...and I was a DOD civilian!!!

One story I know to be true was that two joint commands, one was
called COMFORCESCARIB and another one whose name I do not
remember, one based in Puerto Rico the other based in Key West had
Grenada within their area of responsibility. Both were headed by two
star admirals. Neither command knew anything about the invasion and
neither were involved in the planning or execution of it. They
learned about it in the news. Grenada was in their Area of
Responsibilites.

Some of us in Washington, not directly involved with the command
structure, had problems figuring out which command was in charge of
what. My office had a support function and we never knew who to
support with what.

What they did get was two very ****ed off admirals. Both admirals,
realized in how high of esteem they were view in the Pentagon and both
retired shortly thereafter. Since neither command played a roll in
the invason, it was also realized that neither command had a real
function (one was known as a sort of dumping ground for old colonels
and captains awaiting retirement.) Both commands ceased to exist
shortly thereafter.

Jon, W3JT



On Sat, 7 Feb 2009 07:33:55 -0800, "COLIN LAMB"
wrote:

The original question was whether someone had a circuit diagram of a
Conelrad device marketed by Motorola or Heath. I do not hink anyone
answered the question, although there were wonderful distractions.

Specifically, the Heath catalog of 1959 (and other years) contains
schematics of many of the Heath products, along with a description. I do
have that catalog so I could scan the schematic. Although copyright
protection has now been asserted as to Heath manuals, I do not believe it is
being exercised as to those schematics.

I still have my Morrow Conelrad receiver in my shack. It still functions as
intended and I often listen to the basketball or football game.

As to how an invasion works, I was down in Grenada the year following the US
invasion and spoke with many of the "invadees". It turned out that the US
did not have any good maps of Grenada, because they had not planned to
invade that country. They entered St. Georges and went to the local travel
agency and bought all of their maps of the island and used those to continue
their invasion. The "bad guys" had occupied a school on the top of a hill
right next to the ocean. The US gunships sat off shore and took potshots,
with their big guns, at the school. I remember examining a Russian
motorcycle that had been the victim of a direct hit. Not a lot of science
involved. The inhabitants of St. Georges were treated to a good show. The
local sandwich shop did well selling sandwiches to the US troops. The local
radio station still had lots of bullet holes in it and I recall the radio
station went off the air fairly quickly. Not sure if it was either 640 or
1240, though.

So, it seems that the best invasions, with the least loss of life, occurs
when the country invaded is basically peaceful, with no arms and no ability
to fight back. The entire process can be finished in a weekend. The
inhabitants get a good show, make a profit selling supplies to the invaders,
then get aid to rebuild after the invaders leave.

73, Colin K7FM

I forgot to mention that the Navy and the Marines could not talk to each
other during the Grenada invasion, even though they were within eyesight.
They resorted to telephones. The local travel agent told me the Marines
came in and made long distance telephone calls to the states. I assume
things changed because of what they learned.

73, Colin K7FM