Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
Q:
Most of your peers went to civil schooling during that period?
A:
By most, I mean the number of engineer lieutenants that were going to stay on. I don't know
what percentage it was. I think most of the Regular Army lieutenants who were going to stay
on active duty that I had associated with went to civil school. The ones I knew seemed to. A
lot of people got out after three years, four years too. You'd have to go back and look the
numbers up to be accurate.
Q:
I guess what I'm really getting at is that was more common then than it would become later
on?
A:
I don't know. They still sent a sizable number to school. There may have only been 35 or 40
then. I don't really know.
Q:
Okay. For those people thinking about staying in, this was a step up their career ladder.
A:
Yes, a significant and desired opportunity.
Q:
How many fellow engineer officers were with you during the time at Illinois?
A:
I don't know; we had quite a number. We had a number of Army officers there, to begin
with. They weren't all engineers. For instance, General Lou Wagner, armor officer then a
captain, later commander of AMC [Army Materiel Command], was there taking statics and
that sort of thing because he was going back to teach in the department of mechanics at West
Point. So, I think, as I recall, we had about 25 Army officers, of which the greater number
were engineers. But that could be wrong too. There were quite a number.
Q:
Was that a good experience for you? An interesting experience, going back to school, going
back to graduate school?
A:
Yes, I was ready to go back to school and it was a good experience. I very much did not want
to go straight out of the Military Academy. Later on, they had a program whereby you could
go direct, if you stood in the upper 5 percent of the class. I highly disagreed with that,
thinking you should go out and be grounded in the field before going back to graduate
school. I had done that and now it was time--I was in a good mental attitude to study and do
academic work. I was married just a week before I reported there, so my wife, Ann, and I
spent our first tour together at the University of Illinois. We had a lot of friends there that
stayed friends for the rest of our careers.
Q:
How did you meet your wife?
A:
Well, back in the 23d Engineers, I was the date arranged for "Cousin Ann" when she came
over to visit her cousin, Paula Campbell, and Lieutenant Jack Campbell who was a fellow
lieutenant in the battalion. There were very few bachelors in the 23d Engineers, just three or
four. Through this period, as I mentioned, there was not a great turnover, and so I'd become
very friendly with the Campbells, and at all the battalion functions I would dance with Paula
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