A poster on a local news forum called my call sign a fake name. I thought about it for long while. Of course, it is fake. It's a call sign. I'm not going to use my birth name on the internet. Even though it's already out there. However, I got to reflecting on when I actually started using Matua Warrior.
Thinking back to when I first used it was over a decade ago. Yeah, I'm probably just dated myself. I know it's a combination of two events during my life. I can't remember who is was. It could have been a late uncle, cousin, one of my scouts/venturers, or even a close friend who may have coined the term.
I distinctly remember talking about my past and the Scout Troop that I was leading. I held my military service in high regards...a standard that I tried to keep and follow. The original term was Sendalu Matua, which loosely means Warrior Chief. The first word, Sendalu, was for my military service. The second word, Matua, was for the Scout Troop 26. Who we, the scouts, picked as the name for our troop: The Matuas'.
One of my scouts didn't like the term Sendalu and instead used Warrior, and changed the order of the words around. Since then it's been Matua Warrior. Although, Sendalun Matua sounds a whole lot better. I didn't want to disappoint my young scouts and accepted the new call sign from them.
We used our call signs sparingly in the scout troop. We didn't have radios back then. But when most everyone started getting email accounts. That was the best time to use it. I have used it with my yahoo account since the late 90's. That's a long time ago.
I'm proud of my call sign from my scouts. It brings back lots of crazy high adventures that we did.
Another call sign that I used before: Renegade 26. That was my actual call sign during the First Gulf War. Those were fun times too.
ESTA...
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