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Something About Commanders
tradition, but he was having none of it. Blue was blue, and black wasn't. I had better erase
all that black stuff and replace it with blue, or else.
I had Sgt Johnson get out a rag saturated in lighter fluid and dab off the black a
little at a time, replacing each symbol with blue. And for weeks thereafter I kept it that
way, despite complaints from people who came in to look at it and couldn't see the blue.
Then, noting that Theimer had never returned to check, I went back to the black.
Major Jesse Saegert, the Div Arty S-2, told me later that Col Theimer - yes, he got
promoted - used to come into his lair almost every morning to look at his situation map
and ask stupid questions. "What makes with the river?" and "Where are the mines?" were
his standard ones.
At first Saegert tried to answer as best he could, but eventually he suspected that
Theimer wasn't listening to him, but was gazing into space in some other direction. To
test this theory, he began to throw out some provocative remarks. "There are at least a
hundred thousand German troops in this forest," he would start out, pointing to a patch of
woods about the size of the plaza at Taos. When that drew no response, he would
continue, "A million Tiger tanks have been seen in this village." Theimer would grunt
and wander off to harass someone else who was trying to get his work done.
Lt Col Earl Sutton, the Div Arty S-3, summed it up nicely. "Theimer is nuts.
Bixby may be crazy, but Theimer is just plain nuts."
The last time I saw John Theimer, at the Presidio of San Francisco, he was
wearing the two stars of a major general. And I never met anyone who had served under
him that would disagree with Sutton's characterization.
Fortunately we had Lt Col Eric Peach as a battalion commander, and he stood
between us and the Div Arty crew, taking the heat for us. He was exactly the kind of
calm, generally low-key leader we needed as a commander in combat, and our previous
ones who had trained us were exactly what we needed to get us ready.
Our first commander back at Camp Barkeley, Lt Col E. R. Pierce, had been a
model for most of us: firm, dignified, knowledgeable, and filled with noblesse oblige.
And apparently tireless. On field exercises when I was a battery commander, I got an
average of three hours sleep a night, and the last person I saw before I turned in and the
first I saw when I woke up was Col Pierce.
Following him, after a brief period with Major Bob Hughes as commander, was
Lt Col James Costain, who was even more knowledgeable and a great deal more
demanding. He expected every man - and particularly every officer - to perform at a
super-human level. Few of us met his expectations, but we at least tried, for we feared his
tongue-lashings. It seems to me that there were only three of us that he spared from being
chewed out: Major Swatosh, the S-3; Lt Wright, the survey officer; and me. He did not
pick on Ray Wright because he did perform at a super-human level and seemed incapable
of making a mistake. I think he left me alone because when I made a mistake I tried to
catch it before he did and took the wind out of his sails. I have no idea why Swatosh
escaped.
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