________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
I went to Fort Knox, Kentucky, in the late February or March time frame of '52 and took the
entrance examination. That includes both medical exam, physical aptitude test, and academic
tests.
Meanwhile, I was going to continue pointing toward either Purdue or Indiana. I went to the
rush parties for the fraternities during the appropriate weekends during that year at both
universities. Somewhere around April I had a call at the high school. In the middle of an
afternoon class someone came to the door and asked for me and said Congressman Harvey
was on the phone. So, I left the class and went down to the main offices and took his call. He
said he wanted to know my decision as to whether I wanted to go or not because I was now
his principal nominee. The other one had fallen out somehow. I told him I'd call him back
the next day and give him my decision. So, I went home, thought it over, called him back the
next day, and told him I would accept the appointment.
Q:
Let's go back just a minute. Do you know why your father suggested the idea of going to
West Point. Did he have a military background at all?
A:
No, he didn't, and I don't know why.
Q:
Were you the only child? Did you have siblings?
A:
I had three brothers.
Q:
Three brothers--younger?
A:
Next one three years away, then two and two. Four boys. All grew up together. We lived just
outside town, so it was rural. We had a three-acre place with a big field in the front yard. It
was a gathering place for the 18 or 20 kids in the neighborhood for whatever sport was in
season.
Q:
None of your younger brothers decided to go to West Point too?
A:
No. My father was a dentist and later specialized in oral surgery. He wanted one of us to be a
dentist; none of us were. Two of us eventually became engineers--me, a military engineer,
and my brother Jan, who is a civil engineer and currently working in his own practice up in
Newark, New York. He was the third son. So, one and three became engineers, two and four
went into medicine. My brother David, the second oldest, is now a teaching and research
physician at the University of Oklahoma Medical School and Chief of the Department of
Endocrinology. My brother Bill, the youngest, does research and teaches as a professor of
pharmacology at the University of Florida.
Q:
This is another question out of order. Perhaps I should have asked earlier. The origin of your
last name, "Kem." Is it an old English name?
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