http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A85758-2001May27.html By Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, May 28, 2001; Page A21 Sixteen days before the Korean War ended in July 1953, Army Pvt. Jay Stoner died from a shrapnel wound after crawling onto a battlefield amid heavy shelling to fix a communications line. For Stoner, a cryptologic technician with the 304th Communications Group, fixing the line meant saving lives. It connected front-line intercept stations near Chinese positions at Kumsong to American field commanders who needed tactical intelligence on when and where the enemy was advancing. Stoner's act of heroism made him the first employee of the National Security Agency to die in the line of duty. His name comes first on a polished granite memorial wall at NSA headquarters inscribed with the words, "They Served In Silence." Until now, the secretive agency has remained silent about how they died. But that changed at a Memorial Day service last week, when Stoner became the first NSA casualty whose story was told publicly by the agency. "Memorial Day holds a special meaning for the cryptologic community," said Maj. Gen. Tiiu Kera, head of NSA's uniformed component, who presented plaques and keepsakes to Stoner's family in a ceremony at Fort Meade. The CIA's Wall of Honor remains the best known memorial to fallen intelligence personnel, containing 77 stars -- one for each agency employee killed in the line of duty. The NSA's memorial wall, by contrast, contains 152 names, a testament to the dangers of gathering electronic intelligence from reconnaissance aircraft, spy ships and battlefield listening posts. The biggest single tragedy reflected on the wall was Israel's 1967 attack on the USS Liberty, a naval intelligence ship gathering intercepts on the Arab-Israeli war: Thirty-four American sailors died. Although Israel has said that its attacking planes and ships did not know the Liberty was American, James Bamford writes in a new book on the NSA, "Body of Secrets," that a Navy spy plane flying overhead at the time of the attack intercepted Israeli pilots talking about how the ship was flying an American flag. All but one of the NSA's fallen are named on the wall -- and all but two are military personnel. One of the civilians, Allen M. Blue, died aboard the Liberty. The other is the wall's only anonymous hero, "identity withheld" chiseled in the granite. Fifteen names down from Stoner is the name of Spec. 4 James T. Davis, a cryptologic technician from Livingston, Tenn. He was the first American killed in Vietnam when a truck in which he was riding was ambushed Dec. 21, 1961. Almost a decade earlier, Stoner went off to Korea with a "passion" for communications, according to the NSA's official narrative. He had, by then, showed an aptitude for NSA work -- "tapping into the family phone line and running a block-long telephone line to a neighbor's house down the street." He later used his skills on the battlefield, served in silence and died for his country. *==============================================================* "Communications without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ================================================================ C4I.org - Computer Security, & Intelligence - http://www.c4i.org *==============================================================* ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com --- To unsubscribe email isn-unsubscribeat_private
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