Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
massive hydraulic leaks that we experienced. It then had to go back and be fixed before it
came back.
We also had the great experience of being the first to have an AVLB slide sideways in a
small German town on slick cobblestones and wipe out half a building, and the other
experiences that happen when you get something new for the first time. My classmate at
West Point, Ernie Ruffner, was the bridge platoon leader who conducted those tests.
After having spent that time as bridge company exec, I moved to be the assistant S3 on the
battalion staff, and I finished my tour there. My tour was actually curtailed from a three-year
tour ending in March 1960 to November 1959 because it had been decided that bachelors
ought to only have a two-year tour; married officers would continue to have a three-year tour.
Those of us who were already there had their tours curtailed according to a schedule, so I left
in November.
Q:
Did your experiences with the bridge company or at battalion have the same impact on you
that your platoon leader assignment had? Were there any particular lessons you learned?
A:
Sure, every tour you have in the Army builds on another. We have an Army that's already
prepared for a mission that we hope never comes, but in getting prepared at any one
particular day, you have new people in the job who are learning that job as others move off
and up. So, you're always into a job--as you got to know the job, then you'd go to one of
greater responsibilities, and so you're always continuing to grow and develop.
I guess the bridge company position gave me a chance to look across the whole battalion. I
was pretty accomplished, I thought, by that time in combined arms and in training because
I'd been involved with infantry and armor so very much in all their exercises. Now, because
of the armored division and the Corps as they thought about their mobility requirements, the
training mission was getting across rivers, like the Main River and the Rhine. We practiced a
lot of combined arms bridging, much more than was done later when I was in 7th Engineer
Brigade or even today. Our major exercises would have bridge crossings. I remember several
times being at bridge crossings where the Seventh Army commander and the USAREUR
commander would be there watching it.
So, the bridge company was an opportunity to once again learn a lot. The thing I really
learned was the value of an exceptional first sergeant. Just working in the company command
post with him, watching his ability to handle people and how he organized the company of
his day, were good experiences for me. When I'd been in C Company, there was no platoon
leader's room. There was no desk; I mean, you had no place to go. You were out leading your
platoon. So, the company orderly room was a little godlike place that even platoon leaders
didn't go into. The company commander worked out of there and the company exec, and it
was the domain of the first sergeant.
So, as a platoon leader--I'm backing up a little bit--when you did your lesson plans and met
with your noncommissioned officers you found your own place to do them. When I became a
company exec, then, it broadened the perspective of how things operate. We had a relatively
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