________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
was go to parades. I wanted to do my things, be independent, had a little rebellious nature,
and often tried to beat the system. In the tactical department you think that everyone is trying
to support the team, to get ahead, to be a winner in the endeavor, not recognizing that
everyone is human.
So, there are two different views. Certainly, as a Tac I worked at the cadet captain level, that
is, interacting with the brigade staff, regimental commanders and staff, positions far higher
than I ever had attained as a cadet. I was a cadet sergeant my first class year. I was working
now with people who came with more motivation and a higher level of motivation in their
class, and they'd proven that throughout all of their years there.
So, the people I dealt with, the cadets I dealt with day in and day out, were an extremely high
cut of caliber, motivation, and potential for the future. Not that cadet sergeants can't find
motivation and over a career amount to something. That's not the point. I mean, the point is
that what I saw day in, day out, with my working relationships didn't necessarily reflect that
everybody up there was motivated to do that same kind of job, and there were an awful lot of
the rebellious kind of folks, just like I had been earlier during my yearling and second class
years.
This was also a time where there were antiwar feelings throughout the campuses of the
United States. I didn't notice it at West Point, although in the previous year before I arrived,
the class of '69, under General Rogers, then the commandant, had had some difficulties with
several cadets. Some of them were either canned or otherwise disciplined. There were just a
lot of problems.
I didn't see that. I thought most of the cadets that I saw were motivated, and they were very
interested in wartime activities in Vietnam because they were going to go there when
commissioned and paid attention. They had a good motive.
That didn't mean that cadets didn't have a lot of horseplay and didn't mean there wasn't a lot
of other things that went on. For example, in one incident, Vassar students decided that they
would come down and circulate petitions to get cadets to sign up for antiwar activities. It was
said that they would come down and trade their bodies for a cadet signature on the petition.
That was the word passed around the Corps one week.
On Saturday morning, as we got ready for the football weekend, we looked out upon the
plain, and there was a single cadet bunk with a sign that said "Welcome Vassar." [Laughter]
So, throughout all of this, there's always a bit of horseplay and humor.
Then another incident was more serious. Cadet Michael D. Anderson, who had been the
assistant S3 in the first detail--the academic year was divided into two leadership details--
and thereby worked under the cadet regimental S3, joined the legal suit against mandatory
chapel at the service academies. This was quite a cause clbre at the time.
Now, Cadet Anderson had missed chapel formation one Sunday, and he'd been reported
absent by the cadet in charge of his chapel marching unit. He had argued that he wasn't a
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