________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
area. So, that was a major ongoing design, construct, and real estate acquisition mission over
several years.
Then there were the early planning things, such as deepening and providing breakwaters at
ports, like at Indiana Harbor. This one was really enmeshed in the process because there was
a threat to the beautiful dunes of northern Indiana on Lake Michigan. This was far in advance
of the kind of environmental consciousness in the Corps as today. There was a "Save the
Dunes" committee that said, "Don't let the steel companies come in and build steel mills
there," but the companies owned the land. They were going to do a lot of construction. The
Corps project was to deepen the harbor and build the breakwater. The strategy of the "Save
the Dunes" people was to prohibit us from deepening the harbor and building the breakwater;
then they could prohibit the steel mills from coming in. The steel company already owned the
dune in question and could have carved it down. The nation and the Corps weren't talking
environment in those days, and "environment" wasn't the word used. It was "Save the
Dunes." Put in today's vernacular, we were talking environment, keeping our quality of life,
the things that we think are good for us. We shouldn't just throw something away in a cause
of development.
So, I went to a couple of hearings. I didn't preside at those hearings, but I was a participant. It
was a real eye-opener. So, that was one of the major things the district was doing.
We also had a project to provide safe haven harbors for small boats all up the coast of Lake
Michigan on the Wisconsin shoreline. That was a considerable endeavor with many town
meetings and planning sessions.
After I'd been there a while the district engineer tried to get me out and involved in doing
other things. However, Colonel Ken Hartung, the deputy district engineer, was alerted to go
to Vietnam and all of a sudden it was decided that the deputy position would not be filled.
We would only get two officers per district. So, John Mattina was left with this captain to be
his deputy district engineer. That's how I got to be a deputy. What that also meant, though,
was I was not going to get that second year of experience in the field. My one year in the
office was going to become two, executive officer, then deputy. It had both good points and
bad.
I didn't get to go to the field--I'll talk about that in a minute--but I did get to be the deputy
with that substantive kind of role and greater responsibilities and understanding. I now was
dealing with resources and allocations and all the rest, rather than just being an exec and
passing papers.
To cover this loss of the field experience, before Lieutenant Colonel Hartung left, they sent
me for a month on the Illinois Waterway to get a feel for waterway operations. So, I worked
at Joliet Lock and Dam. On the lock wall I was passing tows through--handling the lines and
working the buoys, and then the machinery as we'd lock the boats through. Then I went out
for a week with a maintenance crew as they repaired tainter gates and sent divers down to go
through the lock culverts. That was a pretty neat blue-collar experience that later on, when I
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