Engineer Memoirs
Q:
What did you think about Korea at the time?
A:
It's funny. I didn't think about it.
Nancy and I were married in May of
1951, and that refocused my
attention. I don't know what I would
have thought about if that hadn't
occurred. But I didn't think about
dropping everything and going to the
war in Korea.
Q:
Your father was still alive in 1951.
A:
He was still alive. He certainly knew
that I was going to SHAPE. I don't
remember that he advised me one
way or the other at that stage on
what to do. I didn't have the same
interest in the Korean War that I had
had in World War II. Certainly an
important consideration was not
wanting to be separated from my new
wife.
Q:
You were also seven years older.
Major and Mrs. Graves in Paris, 1952.
A:
Yes. When I looked around for
things that would be interesting and challenging, the SHAPE thing came up. So I asked
General Larkin to intervene to give me that assignment.
Q:
So you went over there together?
A:
So we went. Actually, we didn't go on the plane together because you had to go and
get housing established. So I went and then Nancy came a little while afterward.
Q:
You were there for three years. That's a long tour.
A:
I was there for three years. The first year I was in the Office of the Special Assistant to
the Chief of Staff, who was General Cortlandt Van Rensselear Schuyler. I was the
assistant exec in there. That was an administrative job. I didn't do much substantive
work there.
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