________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
Q:
Harking back to what you said earlier about your branch choice, when you were at West
Point; they gave you a chance to have some influence, hopefully, over cadets who were
facing branch choice questions.
A:
Well, yes. I mentioned the anecdote before, I believe, where the cadet regimental commander
wanted to change his mind at the last minute and go engineers. I basically talked him out of
it. I think what was important was to make sure people made a right choice.
There's always the interest in your own branch, and you really like to talk it up to people who
are interested or undecided, but, by the same token, you're really looking for the right match
for the Army, for the right people to do something that's going to keep them motivated
throughout a career. If you put a guy who should be infantry at an engineer post, he's
probably not going to be motivated to stay the route, and vice versa.
There was a tremendous interaction with the cadets. For instance, the brigade supply officer,
my counterpart when I was the S4, was Cadet Captain Rick Capka. Later on, when I signed
in at Fort Belvoir to become commandant, there was Major Rick Capka. Then later on he
became General Heiberg's aide here in the USACE headquarters.
So, you do have those kinds of interactions that continue throughout a career.
Major General Dan Schroeder, now commandant of the Engineer School, was a company
tactical officer at that time. Brigadier General Roger Yankoupe, now at South Pacific
Division, was another company tactical officer at that time. I didn't really know him there,
but Major General Pat Kelly, Director of Civil Works, was teaching physics. Major General
Tom Fields and Brigadier General Bill Fitzgerald were company Tacs with me in the 2d
Regiment. Lieutenant General Tom Griffin was exec in the 4th Regiment. Major General Jim
Ellis taught earth space and graphics, and Colonel Jim McNulty was a permanent assistant
professor of mathematics. There are just a lot of people that came in and out of my
assignment at any one particular time.
Q:
West Point does bring together a fairly high concentration of officers, I guess, in the faculty
and staff positions--people who have a lot of interactions. That's quite a few engineers to be
there at one time. Maybe that's usual. I don't know.
A:
Well, there always are quite a number of engineers. Colonel Bob Ayers had just been in the
tactical department and was now in Engineer Branch, Office of Personnel Operations, and he
was trying to get engineers in some of those tactical department leadership positions. Later
on, Generals Mark Sisinyak and Hugh Robinson were regimental commanders.
Q:
We've talked about your positions at West Point. I don't have any further questions. I wasn't
sure if you had any more thoughts about it.
A:
Well, about the S4 job, that was one job I really didn't want to take. I argued that I ought to
stay in the 2d Regiment. Colonel Dick Tallman, the assistant commandant, called me in one
day and said I'd used all the good logic and made a lot of great points about why I should not
go be the S4, and therefore I should report Monday.
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