Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
becoming the Deputy Chief of Engineers and Deputy Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers in 1989. He assisted the Chief of Engineers, LTG Henry Hatch, in confronting the many
difficult issues facing the Corps, including research and development, automation, and strategic
planning. After a distinguished career of 34 years, General Kem retired in the fall of 1990.
This oral history interview contains General Kem's recollections and reflections on his
background and his career in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Like all oral history interviews, the
transcript includes General Kem's personal thoughts and perspectives. Neither his views nor those of
the interviewer necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense or the Corps of Engineers. The
strength of oral history is that it captures the unique perspectives and interpretations of individuals
who witnessed or participated in historical events. Oral history can supplement and enrich the
official record but never replace it. Interviews are often not objective nor are they expected to be.
Their value is contained in the unique personal perspective they provide.
The interviews in this publication were conducted by three historians who were members of the
Office of History, Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, when they taped the interviews.
Dr. Paul K. Walker conducted the session on General Kem's tenure as Deputy Chief of Engineers
and Deputy Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on 19 October 1990, shortly
after General Kem retired from the Army. Dr. John T. Greenwood conducted two sessions on
General Kem's three years as Commanding General of the Engineer Center and Commandant of the
Engineer School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, on 29 June and 13 July 1987, as the general was leaving
that position. Dr. William C. Baldwin and Dr. Walker conducted the remainder of the interview on
22, 24, and 29 October 1990; 13 August, 12 September, 11 October, and 5 November 1991; and 6
February 1992.
The interviews concerning command of the Engineer School and deputy command of the Corps
of Engineers capture events shortly after they occurred and have an immediacy that comes from
being close to events. Inevitably, however, they lack the perspective brought by the passage of time.
That perspective informs the rest of the interview that ranges over General Kem's life and career
from childhood to his retirement from the Army. General Kem and the interviewers reviewed and
edited the transcripts, and Marilyn Hunter, Susan Carroll, and Jean Diaz edited the interview for
publication. The original tapes of the interview are in the Research Collections of the Office of
History, Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The photographs in this publication are from
General Kem's personal collection.
Conducting, transcribing, reviewing, editing, and publishing an oral history takes a long time.
The Office of History thanks General Kem for the sizable amount of time he devoted to this project
and for his support and patience during the lengthy publication process. His time is especially
valuable because of his busy schedule as Director of the Department of Public Works for Arlington
County, Virginia, a position he has occupied for more than a decade. While the production of these
Engineer Memoirs, a series that began more than two decades ago, is time-consuming for all
participants, the Office of History believes it is time well invested because of the unique and
valuable historical information and perspective the Memoirs preserve and make available to those
who read and benefit from them.
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