________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
I said, "I'm not; it can't be me. You know my records aren't going to go to the processing
center until the morning, so I'm going to go back to sleep."
"No, you've got to get ready. You've got to catch the airplane in an hour and a half."
I said, "Well, who do I talk to?"
He said, "You can't talk to anybody. You turn in all your bedding."
So, I got up, and I was really groggy. I got all my gear together. There were no lights, and
there were all these bunks and people and bags all over the floor. I'd stumble, trip, fall, cuss,
and others were doing the same thing. I finally stumbled out, went in, and said, "Okay,
what's going on? I mean, it must be a mistake."
They said, "You're on your way to Pleiku." My first thought was, "Oh, no, I've spent one
tour at Pleiku already. I'd really like to see some other place in this country than go back to
Pleiku." He said, "Nope; your name's Kem, isn't it?"
I said, "Right."
He said, "Well, here it is." Gave me my orders, and it was for Captain--I was a major at the
time--it was for Captain Kem, Chemical Corps. So, there was another Kem in the Army. I
turned back to the person and said, "You better go find him. He's only got about 30 minutes
left."
I had turned my bedding in, and I was also still groggy. I only wanted to go back to sleep.
That's why the other Captain Kem and I never met. I did luck out in that. Since they were
sending people out, there were some field grade billets available with four or five to a room
rather than a hundred.
Q:
It's interesting, for the later migration to this country, the Quakers suffered some religious
persecution in England, I think, didn't they? I think maybe even later on the East Coast, so
that may have helped propel the family over this way.
Well, back to your decision to go to West Point. In the interim, from the time when you first
applied until you got this telephone call and had to make your decision, had you learned any
more about West Point? Or was everything still up in the air in terms of what decision you
would make?
A:
Well, it was all very much up in the air. I had learned more about it. I'd read the catalog by
this time and seen one of the old Hollywood movies. In fact, I didn't know a great deal about
West Point. I knew it was a very good education. So, I was still weighing all of my
opportunities. Since I'd only been an alternate to West Point, I thought that was never going
to jell as the principal, and I would probably pick between Indiana and Purdue. My
inclination had been, because I seemed to be better at math and the sciences, to go to Purdue
and be an engineer. Yet, I really liked the Indiana campus and what was going on there. So, I
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