John W. Morris
improvements. We were near the village of
south of Munsan-ni, on the west side of
the peninsula. Our battalion area was supplied water from two large storage tanks at the top of
a hill. Those tanks with the false work looked like a castle, and I noticed when I arrived that it
was a pretty disreputable looking castle. It needed painting, timbers were loose and so forth. It
gave me the idea that maybe our battalion wasn't in too good a shape. We had an officers call that
first day, and at the end of my introductions to the battalion officers and senior noncommissioned
officers, I said, "Let's get that castle out there fixed up and painted."
Everybody cheered. I didn't really understand what had happened until I found out that my
predecessor had said that they were not to spend time or effort on such things as painting and
superficial caretaking. Well, to me, the castle on the hill was a little more than just superficial.
It symbolized our branch and unit and it either should have been repaired or removed. There's
nothing worse than bad advertisement. Anyhow, that got me off to a very good start with the
members of the battalion.
I had a fine staff of conscientious, hard-working officers. There were three majors-battalion
executive, S-4, and S-3-and six very good company commanders, all regular officers except
headquarters company commander. The ROCID [Reorganization of Combat Infantry Division]
at that time had five battle groups, each with an engineer company in support. They were spread
from the north of the Imjin River right up against the DMZ, southward a distance of some 10 or
miles and across the division front.
In about a week I announced an objective for my term. I wanted to get the battalion back to being
a combat battalion instead of being laden with miscellaneous construction missions, extra
equipment, and numerous higher-echelon maintenance requirements. I went to see the division
commander and proposed that we should stop making asphalt, stop heavy construction, and
concentrate on getting the battalion back to being a combat battalion supportive of the division.
"That's what I want to do during my year here."
I didn't know if he was going to like it or not because the division people wanted engineers doing
various kinds of work, but I pointed out that there were other engineers in the theater for such
missions. His response was, "Fine, go ahead." So I did. That was what we spent our year doing.
The battalion was trimmed and trained to be a proper divisional combat battalion. It gave good
support to its battle groups and to the division, and the division commander appreciated it. When
my term was over, I was one of two officers to get a commendation medal. Today, it doesn't seem
like a great reward, but in those days and since there were only two battalion commanders
selected, it was quite a compliment.
So that was the big picture. Let's take a look at some of the specifics that occurred and the
people.
We had an excellent group of soldiers and officers. One of our first sergeants was Sergeant [Leon
L.] Van Autreve, who later became Command Sergeant Major of the Army. I would run into him
again in Vietnam. All the 8th Engineer first sergeants that made it to Vietnam became command
sergeant majors. One, Command Sergeant Major Bush, became my second command sergeant
major in the 18th Brigade in Vietnam.
The officers included at least four graduates of the Military Academy, all of whom did very well
in the Army later. At least two became general officers. One in particular was John
a new second lieutenant. I was his first battalion commander. John later became the commandant
at the Military Academy. He ultimately became the youngest lieutenant general in the Army and
retired from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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