________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
Now, not everybody had just their own troops in their community, so there had to be a lot of
cooperation. There certainly was a great understanding that everyone had a duty to contribute
to the whole. I'll come back to that, but let me say that the 7th Engineer Brigade headquarters
was located in the town of Kornwestheim, which is just south and contiguous to the town of
Ludwigsburg. It had been there for years, and before that there had been an engineer group
there. This was a sizable subcommunity of the greater Stuttgart military community.
The greater Stuttgart military community had six subcommunities of various sizes, to include
Patch Barracks, where the EUCOM [European Command] headquarters was located; Kelly
Barracks, where the VII Corps headquarters was located; and Nellingen, where the Corps
support command was located. Each of those was commanded by a general officer: EUCOM
by a four-star, VII Corps by a three-star, and 2d SUPCOM [Support Command] by a one-
star. The deputy community commander was a colonel who was the effective everyday
operating official for the community. He also commanded the subcommunity at Robinson
Barracks. Then there were two--the LudwigsburgKornwestheim and Beblingen--
subcommunities that were commanded by colonels. I was the ranking person as a colonel in
the LudwigsburgKornwestheim community.
It was a community composed of seven battalions and many separate companies from all
over the Corps. In fact, I only had one of my battalions there and the atomic demolition
company. We had an infantry battalion, a transportation battalion, maintenance battalion,
signal battalion, and so forth. It was a very large subcommunity and the northernmost in the
greater Stuttgart area. We had a very large family housing area, Pattonville, where people
lived who worked all over Stuttgart--at Patch Barracks, Kelly Barracks, and Nellingen, south
of Stuttgart.
My first hat, then, was to run the subcommunity, but we never used the term
"subcommunity" in the greater Stuttgart community because our subcommunities were
bigger than a lot of other communities. Therefore, we commonly used the term
"community." So, I commanded the LudwigsburgKornwestheim military community, with
support and logistic responsibilities for how we Americans lived there in Germany.
Now, then, to go on, the commander of the 7th Engineer Brigade carried two hats, as I
mentioned. First of all, the command of the brigade as we traditionally view it--all the
aspects of commanding an engineer brigade of four battalions, an atomic demolition
company, and six separate companies.
Now, I said four battalions, but we really had six battalions because the separate
companies--bridge and combat support equipment companies--were formed into what were
then called "composite" battalions. The battalion commander was selected off the battalion
command list and had a small staff. Thus, in essence, we had six battalions, which included
the normally separate companies and the ADM company. Those battalions were located
throughout Germany, so time and distance was a big situation for me and for operations
command and control, but we can get into that later.
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