________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
same brigade location conceived of back then as the first increment of the master restationing
plan. Very obviously, the rest will not now follow with the fall of the Berlin Wall. We had
initiated the first move under the master restationing plan while I was still there, to get
started. We moved an armored battalion of the 8th Infantry Division forward to Wildflecken.
So, here's the 8th Division basically behind the Rhine and one battalion up at Wildflecken.
The concept had been to build this brigade base whereby you could put a brigade of the 8th
Division with its associated battalions and artillery battalion and forward support battalion
and engineer company up there to be forward deployed. One battalion was about as far as we
got.
Q:
I noticed in your bio here it said that you spent some time as assistant DCSENGR, too,
during the time you were over there?
A:
Yes. Ed Keiser had been the assistant DCSENGR. He had left command of the 18th Brigade
shortly before I left 7th Brigade and came down to USAREUR. He was the assistant
DCSENGR when in April or May the brigadier generals list came out. He was on it and
immediately rotated back for a new position in the States. Once he did that, I moved up to be
the assistant DCSENGR. I only had two or three months left to go myself, and I was already
on orders back to the ACE's shop.
Neil Saling, who had been my deputy in the Installations and Construction Division, took
over as chief when I moved up.
Q:
You've talked about ISAE a little bit before, but I've seen references to it in some of my
reading. I know that as a result of Staff '77 it did combine a lot of previously separate
elements that reported to DCSENGR, but maybe I could get you to talk a little bit more about
the variety of functions it actually performed. It seems to have done quite a few different
things. You talked about how it had worked more closely with EUD during the actual
construction stage, I think, so it did have sort of coordinating responsibility during the actual
construction. It seemed to include a lot of activities there.
A:
Oh, it did. As you look at the name, the Installation Support Activity, Europe, it brought
together those things that supported the installation engineer throughout all the communities.
It was supposed to be that point of contact that would support the facility engineer or the
housing guy, although there wasn't so much of that. It also brought together other things that
were out there in the execution mode. Once again, remember, this was for USAREUR
headquarters under Staff `77 to separate policy, programming, and budgeting staff functions
from execution. The execution functions were to leave Campbell Barracks and go elsewhere.
ISAE did that for engineer execution functions.
If you look at the ISAE organization chart, they were the Power Procurement Office--they
procured the power and did all the interactions with the German agencies for that. They
procured the coal from all over that went to the various installations.
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