Engineer Memoirs
There was another that was memorable. His name was [Lieutenant Colonel Horace W.]
Taul. He was an engineer who had gone to West Point, but had resigned from the Army
and gone into civilian practice. He taught us mechanics. He was a very bright guy, but
he would take up hours telling us about his civilian experiences and going on and on
about how one had to be accurate and so forth. He was a very generous grader.
I was in the first section in these subjects. The people were bright. They did well, but
Taul always gave us the benefit of the doubt as to the solution. For one period of two
months, I only dropped one-tenth in mechanics. However, I was number two on that
because Jim Scoggin, who was number one, didn't drop any tenths at all.
This meant that we had had 25 or 30 recitations and had gotten a perfect grade every
day. But this was partly, I think, because Taul was easy on us. He thought we were the
best students, and he seemed more preoccupied with the practices of the engineering
profession than he was with daily grades.
My instructor in engineering was [Woodrow] Woody Wilson, who became a colonel
in the Corps of Engineers. He was in charge of Atlas missile site construction when the
Corps was building the ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] installations in the
1960s.
Q:
CEBMCO [Corps of Engineers Ballistic Missile Construction Office].
A:
CEBMCO. [Major General Charles C.] Chuck Noble had the Minuteman sites.
[Lieutenant General] Carroll Dunn commanded CEBMCO. Woody was an
extraordinarily able guy. He had been quite a football player for West Point. He was
back as an instructor when I was a firstclassman.
Q:
Was the competition for grades pretty intense?
A:
At the top level it was. The men at the top were a bunch of smart guys. Some cadets
further down said you didn't have to study, which was a bunch of baloney. There was
nobody who stayed in the top group without studying. Scoggin was number one and
had graduated from Mississippi State before he entered West Point.
Q:
So he was much older?
A:
He was older, a very bright guy. But he worked hard--very hard. I worked very hard.
I roomed with [Lieutenant General Kenneth B.] Ken Cooper, who graduated number
five, and he worked very hard. In that kind of competition, the marginal return of more
study is progressively less. You could get a 90 by opening the book for 5 minutes, and
maybe you could get a 95 by opening the book for 30 minutes. You could get a perfect
20
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