The Brad Award

            In April 1995 at the worldwide conference of the Armed Forces  Radio and Television Service (AFRTS), the Armed Forces Broadcasters Association presented me with the Brad Award, named after legendary military broadcaster John Bradley.  The award cited me for “outstanding leadership and management in military broadcasting.”  The following are my remarks in accepting the award.

            Colonel Eaton and Colonel Camera called me from Washington a couple of weeks ago to tell me about the Brad Award.  They called just before dinner time in Vicenza; so, naturally, that was the main topic of conversation at the table that evening.  And the discussion was very revealing about the personalities in the Mullen household.  My wife, Barbara, who’s the optimist in our family, asked, “Does this mean they’re going to give you a promotion?”  I played my role as the family pessimist by saying, “No, it probably means they want me to retire.”  Then, our son Marty, the realist, said, “No, they probably just picked a guy who they knew would give a short speech.”

            Thank you very much.  And good night.

            (At this point, some members of the audience applauded and got up to leave the banquet room.  But I resumed my remarks.)

            Seriously, my son’s realism did get me thinking realistically about this prestigious  award.  And I came to the conclusion that it certainly wasn’t meant for me alone. Despite what you just heard in the citation, there’s nothing in my twenty-seven years with SEB that matches the accomplishments of John Bradley or several other people I can think of.  No, this is an award for SEB and, if you’ll forgive me for ignoring my charge to be a guy who makes short speeches, I’d like to go on  a little longer to tell you why I think SEB won this award and what I think of when I think of SEB.

            I think of the Army Specialist in the sixties, when SEB was SEN, who identified us by announcing, “This here’s the Southern European Network.”  Of course, we admonished him about the proper way to read that I.D.   So, the next hour, he announced, “This is the Southern European Network…and don’t ya’ll fergit it.”

            I think of the Navy Journalist in the seventies, who read a radio news story about astronauts returning from the moon with a sample of lunar “orgasms”.

            I think of SEB’s first TV weather forecaster in the eighties, an Airman who couldn’t find Nebraska on the map and explained to the audience that he was never very good at geometry.

            I think of those three announcers a lot lately.  Now that we have a network of affiliates all over Italy,  with an audience throughout southern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East…now that we have all the “bells and whistles” of modern broadcast technology…now that we have ten times the number of announcers we had in the past.  I think of those three announcers and wonder if they could still be part of SEB in the nineties.

            Then, I think of the SEB commander who recently told me we’re no longer a “Mom and Pop” operation.  But, when he spent an afternoon on the roof of the Sixth Fleet Admiral’s house adjusting a TV antenna, while I was in the living room checking the picture, it was all I could do to keep from shouting, “It’s coming in better now, Pop.”

            I also think of the phone call this January from Saudi Arabia.  Until then, we’d planned to air radio coverage of the Super Bowl only on our 107 FM service.  But the caller, from an air base in the desert, said they received SEB only on 106 FM.  That’s all it took to change our minds: Just a phone call; no paperwork; we put the game on both radio services.  And I thought, “Well, Mom, it’s still SEB.”  Maybe we’re a little bigger than we were in the past, but we’re not too big to remember where we came from, and we’re not too serious to have some fun now and then.

            And it felt good to know those announcers from past decades could still be part of SEB in the nineties, along with a TV news anchor who recently “crucified”, so to speak, the name of the Second Armored “Calvary”…with a Deejay who thinks there’s a “Lesbian Army” in Beirut…and with a Chief Of Network Operations (me) who thought it’d be neat to promote last year’s World Cup Soccer matches with animated graphics showing Italy’s boot kicking Sicily into a goal in New Jersey.  That didn’t make it on the air, by the way, because Spain was blocking the shot.

            My wife, Barbara, read this speech before I left Italy, and she said it sounds as if I’m not taking all of this seriously.  I just reminded her that that’s what SEB is all about:  Not taking things too seriously; serving the audience by climbing their rooftops and answering their phone calls.  And this is not my award; it’s SEB’s.  I’m honored by it, but I’m honored on behalf of SEB.

            And so, on behalf of what I think is SEB – the southern Army Specialist, the orgasmic Navy Journalist, the geometric Airman and their modern counterparts – not to mention “Mom and Pop”, I thank you for this honor.

            I’m sorry my speech wasn’t as short as expected.  And I’d like to close tonight by announcing…….I’m not retiring until we get Colonel Camera down from that roof.