________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
Now, the idea was, a lot of young soldiers don't have a lot, so they really do need some
furniture. Others have a lot, and the Army was paying to store it in the United States and, at
the same time, paying to have furniture in Europe to give them, and didn't have enough to do
both.
So, we had them both angry. We couldn't take care of the soldier and his needs; we didn't
have enough. We couldn't replace what the senior people were needing when they left theirs
in the United States.
We thought, based on our experience with appliances, refrigerators, and stoves, where we
really had the inventory down, that we could operate the system centrally, get out of the ratty
warehouses spread throughout the command, have fewer warehouses, and really get on a
serve-the-people kind of basis.
So, we had a lot of talks, and back and forth messages, and that sort of thing. This carried on
into my time as Chief of Staff. The study person--I don't remember her name--did a
wonderful job on the study. She was sent by the Department of the Army over to intern in
Europe and learn the trade and get experience in a working environment.
Anyway, she and I came back and briefed the Army Staff and the Vice Chief of Staff of the
Army, General Art Brown, by this time, and sold them on the idea that we could then reverse
the process one more time.
Q:
That's a big operation for as many soldiers as are stationed in Europe, and as much
movement back and forth as there is.
A:
Oh, it was a big operation. It caused the hiring of a lot of Germans and it cost a lot of money.
Q:
Interesting.
Let me ask a question that goes a little bit back to the construction issue. This may not be a
fair question, but looking at EUD from the perspective you did at DCSENGR, what kind of a
job was it doing? Was it doing a big job at that point? Other than some of the issues you've
talked about, were there any major construction issues or problems that came up, and how
would you evaluate EUD at its peak, as we look back now, since construction dropped off
and the size of the organization dropped off?
A:
Well, you may recall from our earlier sessions, during my 1979 time at the Office of the
DCSENGR as Chief of Installations and Construction, that I was a harsh critic of EUD, but
yet saw, at that time, that with the arrival of Joe Higgs and other folks they were really trying
to make a change in engineering and project management.
I was very pleased to arrive back in DCSENGR and find an altogether productive, top-flight
European Division. So, I thought very highly of EUD during my year as DCSENGR and a
year as Chief of Staff. I thought Bill Ray was a super commander, and Joe Higgs and John
Blake really were topflight SESs. They had a bunch of other top-flight people that interacted
well. They were positive, can do, and had a feeling for being close to the people they served.
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