Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
Q:
General Gar Davidson was the superintendent when you were there?
A:
No. Let me see. General Frederick Irving was there when I arrived. General Blackshear
Bryan's the one that I remember the most. Gar Davidson probably took over from Bryan the
summer following our graduation.
Q:
I interviewed him. I didn't go back and check my notes to see exactly the time frame he was
there, but it was at some point.
A:
General Mike Michaelis was one of the commandants. General Edwin Messinger replaced
him.
Q:
It's the tactical officers who probably had more influence over cadets, isn't it?
A:
They had and have a very close relationship and influence. You're influenced by the
instructors too. Certainly one of my reasons for going engineers was because some of the
instructors that I thought the most of were engineers. I can't probably pull all the names back,
but Captains Rank, McConnell, and Rochefort were some of them. Captain McAdoo was
another. Their general demeanor, approach, and professionalism was attractive. I don't recall
going up and talking to them so much as just observing them.
My intent when I went there was probably never to make it a career. I was not fixed on a
military career as an outcome. I went there still having thoughts about Purdue University and
being an engineer, with an inclination towards military engineering. I didn't know much
about the other branches.
As I carried through until my final week, I more or less maintained that inclination. In the
final week before branch drawing, as often happened--I went back later as a tactical officer,
so I observed this in the cadets at that time--in my final week I started having second
thoughts. "Am I making the right choice? Maybe I should go infantry or armor" because I
liked the leadership aspects and I liked the unit aspects of troop duty. Was I going to get
sufficient troop kind of time in the engineers, because I enjoyed that part of what we had
done up there? So, I then went to various folks and did a lot of hard talking on infantry and
armor. The armor folks in the Office of Military Instruction took me under wing, and I had
quite a conversation with them. The night before branch selection I came to grips with myself
and decided, "You don't think one way for a lot of months and then, quick knee-jerk, make a
change."
Some years later, I was the acting regimental tactical officer because Bob Haldane--I was
lieutenant colonel at that time, and the executive officer/S3 of the 2d Regiment, my
regimental commander, was the same Colonel Bob Haldane who as a captain had been my
Company I1 tactical officer--was off to Harvard for the advanced management course. So, I
was the acting regimental commander at the time of branch choice for the class of '70. The
cadet regimental commander, who had been going infantry for all these years, on the next to
the last night came in to me and said he thought he'd go engineers instead. I went back to my
own experiences, told him the story. I said, "You know, you don't have an inclination for a
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