________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
easy going company commander, but a very strong first sergeant. It was a period where I
learned about how multiple things bigger than a platoon go together and fit, and how you
support multiple different operations. Good experience.
I moved up to be the assistant S3. It was really a battalion to maximize learning, for a
couple of different reasons. I knew a lot about maintenance. That was another thing the 3d
Armored Division and 23d Engineers did a lot of. I mean, motor pools and maintenance were
ingrained. You took care of your stuff--I knew that from being a platoon leader and the
company exec in a bridge company where we had all those trucks and the M4T6 bridge and
the new AVLB platoon and all of that.
Colonel Howard B. Coffman was my first battalion commander; Colonel John Frasrand was
the second. Then Colonel Nick Carter came in and took command in the early summer of
'59. Anyway, I became the S3, as I recall, about March of 1959. This was now the time, if
you recall my talking about the gyro rotation, that this group of people were leaving. For the
first time we were getting a turnover of people--new people, new company commanders,
and in all the staff activities.
I ought to make a comment about the company commanders we had back in '59. During my
first couple of years in the battalion, our company commanders were old--that's a relative
term--grizzled veterans. I think John Pick, when he was my company commander, was on
about his fifth company. T.G. Smith was my first company commander. He was followed by
Larry Smith. T.G. was short, Larry was tall. T.G. was initially the company commander,
Larry Smith was the S1, and Larry Smith came down and took the company, and T.G. went
up to be the assistant 3, replacing Jack Campbell, who became the executive officer of D
Company. All were good officers and taught me a lot.
Here was this group of folks who had been over there together, knew each other well, and all
interacted with each other, all competed with each other, and a lot of them had Korea
experience and multiple companies. Now in 1959 we were making this turnover, and the
Smiths went home and the senior lieutenants went home, and now all of a sudden there was
an opportunity to move up. Major Jim Foster had come in to be the S3, and he was my S3
boss to start off with. Then he left and Major Vern Pinky came in to be the S3. There was
all this change that summer, and that was during the rotation time I was the assistant S3.
The leadership of the division changed, too, and General Frederick Brown came in to be the
division commander and Brigadier General Abrams came in to be the assistant division
commander.
With Nick Carter, we had a can-do operator. He had an outward flair, very oriented to
operations. Lieutenant Colonel Frasrand had been more methodical and middle ground. So,
there was a new spirit in the battalion, I think, because we'd been alike so long, and in the
people's last few months of all being together, we hadn't had much change. Carter ignited a
whole new thinking of things. Pinky came in to be the S3 and it was all new. So, it was kind
of exciting for me as an assistant S3, and I was a bridge between the two. Having been the
assistant S3 three months under Foster, the old S3, and Frasrand, the battalion commander,
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