Engineer Memoirs
tactics. This odd organization was one way of making everybody do everything over
again.
[Lieutenant] General [Lionel C.] McGarr was the commandant at Leavenworth, and he
did not have the admiration and respect of most people there. He didn't come through
well. He seemed to be arbitrary, and the whole curriculum was being revised as the
result of this pentomic division. That created a lot of tension on the faculty.
One of the things that created the most consternation was his rule that any student
could complain or criticize any member of the faculty. We had this sort of a challenge
system. There were all kinds of challenges going on all the time, and the faculty was
uptight because they would have to answer to McGarr if they were challenged. It
created a lot of tension.
Q:
It was not just doctrinal instability; it was also institutional instability.
A:
Well, it was. It was his method of operation. The school survived this.
Q:
And the Army did, too.
A:
Yes. And we went to another organization, and so forth. I learned a lot there, but
perhaps it wasn't one of Leavenworth's most shining periods in terms of its academic
excellence.
Commander, 44th Engineer Construction Battalion, 19581959
Q:
Did you know when you went there, or did you expect when you went there, that you
would be going to a unit again?
A:
I expected that after Leavenworth I would go overseas on an unaccompanied tour. I
had been to SHAPE with my family. Because of the Korean War most people in the
Army had been overseas, separated from their family. So I expected to do that.
I hoped to get a command. But I wasn't too savvy in the way these things worked. I
wrote some letters and talked to the people in the Office of the Chief of Engineers
about this, and they assured me that that's what I was supposed to do.
But it was somewhat of a lucky happenstance that I got a command as easily as I did.
It came about because my West Point classmate, [Lieutenant Colonel Robert M.] Bob
Rodden, had been working more assiduously than I and had been in communication
with the people in Korea. He had pretty well lined himself up to take command of the
76
Previous Page
