________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
do it." So, I took the first aid exam, and I surely didn't max it, but I did all right--80 percent
or 85, something reasonable for a no-notice kind of thing.
That evening my company commander came back. We went to dinner together and that's
how I got to meet him. Two days later I was on the way to the field because the battalion that
my platoon supported, the 37th Armored Infantry Battalion, Mechanized Infantry Battalion,
out of Friedberg, was in the field on a command post exercise. He wanted me to have that
experience right off. So, I headed out, and they gave me the best map-reading
noncommissioned officer in the platoon, the assistant platoon sergeant, so I would get there.
We struck off by jeep and went down to find the coordinates of the 37th Infantry Battalion
command post.
After the assistant platoon sergeant got lost, I took the map and, based on what I'd been
taught at Belvoir and at West Point, we found our way there. From a standing start, I
remember walking in to meet the battalion commander. He said, "Well you're just in time. In
half an hour we're getting all the company commanders together and laying out the duties for
tomorrow." I still remember that vividly. We entered his command van and he said, "Okay,
men, I want you to meet Lieutenant Kem. He's my engineer, my task force engineer." Here
were a couple of armor guys and a couple of infantry captains, his company commanders. It
was a cross-reinforced task force. They were talking about the next day's reconnaissance;
they were going to set up a defensive position. We were terrain-walking the general defense
plan on the terrain.
After laying out his concept of operations, he said, "Okay, now, Lieutenant, I'm concerned
about the tank approach; I want to know what you can do for me." So, the next day I did my
recon with the others and, holy cow, they were defending on a table top. I mean, you couldn't
do much more than interdict a road here or there. There were gentle slopes and terrain that
tanks could roll across easily. You just couldn't put in enough mines to close a gap or do
something worthwhile.
So, we got back together, and he asked for each company commander's report, and they all
mentioned how they would occupy their position. Then he turned to me and said, "Well,
Lieutenant, what are you engineers going to do for me?" I thought, "Boy, how am I going to
tell him I can't do much?" So, I said, "Well, Sir, there's not very much we can do to give you
a very cohesive, strong defense, so we can do a little bit about breaking up the cohesion of
the attack here and there." He said, "Well, that's just what I thought. I saw that big bunch of
terrain out there and I didn't think you would be able to do very much."
Wow! He accepted my view. I thought of my inexperience. Here was a place where I'm in
my first week, I'm still living out of the place where I threw my suitcases, and I'm out on a
two-day exercise and having to produce quickly. Later, when I was commandant at the
Engineer School, I used those kinds of instances to emphasize, "You've got to be prepared."
To finish that week, I came back from those two days in the field and my company
commander said, "While you were gone, division wants to open up this training area [later to
become the Friedberg Training Area and today a major local training area for one of the
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