By DAVID SILVERBERG
A bell rings in a United States military command center deep inside a southern Pennsylvania mountain.
Everyone must leave an office in Building E except one man -- Greg Kirk, a U.S. Air Force encryption specialist with a top-secret clearance.
Kirk receives the incoming message and immediately delivers it to U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, commander of the Alternate National Military Command Center.
"I worked with all top-secret people, but I was the only one with code word clearance," said Kirk, who has been the director of the United Gospel Rescue Mission in Poplar Bluff for nearly 11 years. "I used an X-Acto knife to delete code words."
Kirk worked three years in the Raven Rock Mountain Complex, also known as Site R and the "underground Pentagon." It is only six miles from Camp David, a presidential retreat in northern Maryland.
President Harry Truman approved Site R in 1950. Three underground buildings A, B and C (each three stories high) were completed in 1953. Buildings D and E were added in 1963,
Kirk talks about his life and how he unexpectedly ended up at Site R.
His father, Donald Kirk, retired as a 1st sergeant in the Air Force in 1976 and moved to Springfield, Mo., to prepare for the ministry at Baptist Bible College.
"I lived all my life on military bases," said Kirk, who was born while his dad was stationed at Norton Air Force Base near San Bernardino, Calif.
He celebrated his 17th birthday on Jan. 5, 1977, in Springfield and went into the Army National Guard the next day. He trained at Fort Dix, N.J., during the summer of 1977 and was activated for three weeks during the Missouri ice storm in early 1978.
"My only trip to Poplar Bluff (prior to being hired at the mission) was in the back of a 2 1/2 ton Army truck," Kirk said. "I froze while traveling on old two-lane U.S. 60. We handed out heaters to people in the Poplar Bluff area."
In 1978, Kirk enlisted in the Air Force and was given a test at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, on languages and cryptology.
"They said I tested high off the chart. They sent me to a cryptographic school at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas," Kirk said. "I waited six weeks for my top-secret clearance before I could take 16 weeks of classes. The training was so secret I could not talk about what I was doing."
His next orders took him to Fort Ritchie in northern Maryland near Site R. Fort Ritchie was a military intelligence training center.
"Nobody had heard of it," Kirk said.
When he arrived in Maryland, Kirk learned he was going to be involved with SIOP-ESI (Single Integrated Operational Plan-Extremely Sensitive Information).
"I was taken to the base hospital and was told I needed a retina scan," Kirk said.
When he went to work his first day at Site R, he found out why he needed a retina scan.
Kirk describes what he experienced as he entered the top-secret Site R.
"I went past six or seven checkpoints before arriving at the pedestrian tunnel entrance. I walked three miles down underground. I came to a giant metal door two to three feet thick. There was an armed military policeman and a warning sign -- use of force authorized beyond this point. Before entering, I had to look into a microscopic lens (which checked his retina). The door opens up to a gigantic tunnel."
He walked to Building E where his office was located. He cannot say much about his work other than he had to gather sensitive information.
"They called us the ant people," Kirk said.
A surprise opportunity came when he was assigned to the Middle East peace talks at Camp David in September 1978.
"I sat in a room with President Jimmy Carter, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat," Kirk said. "I operated an encrypted phone system."
He also monitored radios during Carter's attempted return of hostages "when things went wrong."
During the summer of 1979, Kirk returned to Springfield to marry his high school sweetheart. He and Pamela will celebrate their 38th wedding anniversary on June 26.
In 1981 when Ronald Reagan was president, Kirk was attached to the National Security Agency and assigned to Araxos base in southern Greece for one year.
"No one had heard of it," Kirk said. "We did flights into Afghanistan after the Soviets took over the country. My job was to call in air strikes and obtain emergency help."
He worked with the 1104 Communications Group.
"Our motto was In God We Trust -- All Others We Monitor," Kirk said.
He saw Lt. Col. Oliver North in Afghanistan, but they had no contact. North was in charge of a special operations unit.
"We observed units and looked for individuals we could interrogate," Kirk said. "I just did encryptive work."
They did not meet again until North was the speaker during a First Midwest Bank luncheon at the Black River Coliseum in Poplar Bluff a few years ago.
"He remembered me," Kirk said.
After being based in Greece, Kirk spent one year at Strategic Air Command headquarters in Omaha, Neb.
He left active duty in 1983 as a staff sergeant, but spent the next six years doing intelligence work with the Army Reserves at Des Plaines, Ill., while taking Bible courses at Fairhaven Baptist College in Chesterton, Ind.
"I wanted to stay in, but God put a calling in my heart to go into the ministry," Kirk said.
He earned a master's degree in clinical counseling from Jacksonville, Fla., Theological Seminary and a master's degree in Christian service from Union University in Jackson, Tenn. He has been accepted as a doctoral candidate at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
Kirk also has been the pastor of Grand Avenue Baptist Church in Poplar Bluff for eight years.
The Kirks are the parents of three children -- Kevin in Gladstone, Mo., Erin in Sacramento, Calif., and Shandela in Washington, D.C. They have 10 grandchildren.
"Shandela was born while I was in Afghanistan. She was four-months-old when I saw her the first time," Kirk said.
Looking back over his career in military intelligence, Kirk said, "I am so proud I got picked to do this. I was just doing my job, but I am so proud I got to serve our country."