Serving The Nation In Perilous Times: The Oldest Living Grad Reflects

Herb Stern was born on Christmas Eve 1918 in Baltimore, Maryland. His father had a hardware and building materials business, and his mother was a homemaker. Her brother had been drafted for World War I. He was an only child and enjoyed playing soccer and baseball as a boy. Having always wanted to attend West Point, he attended Columbian Prep School in D.C. and joined the National Guard when he was 16, earning a Civil Service Commission Appointment. Reporting to the Academy in the summer of 1938, he found Beast Barracks to be tough. He recalls living in tents on the Plain and being hazed by Yearlings. During his time as a Cadet, he took horseback riding in Thayer Hall all four years and “detested it.” He performed well militarily and academically, achieving the rank of Cadet Sergeant. He was a fullback on the West Point Soccer team and beat every team in the Ivy League except Penn State. He particularly remembers beating Navy twice and the match against Harvard. Back then, the Corps was arranged by height, and he was in F Company, a “runt” company. Even though he was Jewish, he attended Protestant services during his first two years. When he was a Cow (Junior), the Jewish Welfare Board ensured a Rabbi was available and Jewish services were held in the Old Cadet Chapel. He remembers reading stories in the New York Times after the Nazis began expanding into Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, the Low Countries, and France. Upon graduation, he commissioned as a Field Artillery Officer, but was assigned to flight school, completing Primary before requesting to return to his basic branch. While at Ft. Sill, he met his wife, and they were married in May 1942. He remembers shooting pool in the Officers’ Club when he first heard of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor. In January 1942, he received orders to report to the 8th Division Artillery at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina. He first served as a Battery Commander in the 8th Division, but was transferred to the 84th Division, the “Railsplitters,” when that unit was formed in October 1942. He describes taking the Army Ground Force Firing Test and achieving the highest score in the 4th Army. After attending the Advanced Course and Command and General Staff College, he returned to the 84th Division, where he was assigned as the S3 and later the Commander of the 325th Field Artillery Battalion (March 1945). Before deploying to Europe, he remembers doing a lot of shooting and artillery training, and participating in the Louisiana Maneuvers. His unit sailed from New York on September 20, 1944, and before leaving he had dinner with his father. His troop ship arrived in Great Britain on October 1, 1944. He describes being stationed in Basingstoke and on the Salisbury Plain, drawing equipment from a depot, and seeing a classmate in London. Landing in the Netherlands in early November 1944, he recalls seeing artillery flashes in the distance. On November 18th, the 84th Division entered combat at Geilenkirchen, Germany, north of Aachen. Remembering the Battle of the Bulge, he states that he had “never seen so much confusion.” Facing a German armor unit, he orchestrated firing on it with 10 battalions of artillery. Following the Bulge, he recalls organizing as combat teams and “moving pretty fast.” Eventually, he commanded a group of two Artillery Battalions. Once, when the 325th was displacing, a German tank unit caught them, and his gunners had to resort to direct fire with their 105mm artillery pieces. As his unit advanced, they crossed rivers and canals, encountered civilians, and in April 1945, liberated a slave labor camp containing 3000 emaciated Jewish women. Reaching the Elbe, he crossed the river and drank for three days with the Soviets. By the end of the war, he was guarding the Swiss border, focusing on stopping smuggling, and training for a deployment to the Pacific. When the war against Japan ended, he became one of three U.S. students at the Ecole Superieur de Guerre in Paris. From 1946 to 1947, he was assigned to the 60th Field Artillery in the 9th Division as part of the Constabulary Force in Southern Bavaria and was responsible for repatriating displaced persons. By this time, his wife and daughter were able to join him. Even though Munich and Frankfurt were in rubble, Augsburg was in good shape. Part of his assignment involved the de-Nazification of the area, and he removed any local officials with party ties. In 1947, he returned to the United States and was stationed at Ft. Monroe, serving in the Office of the Chief of Army Field Forces under General Devers. From 1950 to 1951, he was assigned to MAAG (Military Advisory and Assistance Group) Indochina with the mission of supporting the French military and helping resource supplies and equipment (such as M48 tanks). During this time, he was able to travel through Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. In 1951, he returned the States to serve as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics in the Department of the Army. In 1954, he attended the Army War College before reporting to NATO CINCSOUTH in 1955, where he worked on defense plans for Eastern Turkey. From 1958 to 1961, he served on the Joint Advanced Study Group for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which he called “an assignment out of heaven,” envisioning what the Army would look like 20 years in the future. In 1961, he took command of the 2nd Training Regiment at Ft. Carson, Colorado, in charge of battalions of Infantry and Field Artillery Advanced Individual Training. In 1964, he was assigned to CENTO (Central Treaty Organization) in Ankara, Turkey. CENTO consisted of officers from Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States, although by March 1959, Iraq had withdrawn from the alliance. In that assignment he worked in the Plans Division, working for an Iranian Colonel, who he felt was dishonest. In 1966, he was assigned as the Chief of Advanced Studies at the Army War College. This was at the height of the Vietnam War, and he “never agreed with what we were doing in Vietnam” because “we had no business being there.” In 1968, he retired from the Army and took over the family business, Home Furnishings Corporation. He felt this was his biggest mistake because he did not like the ethics of the business world. In 1973, he served as the Vice President of Property Management, a position he held until 1983. Reflecting on his career, he notes that he “served in perilous times and helped maintain the nation.” At the end of the interview he states that the Academy “taught me ethics, honesty, and devotion to duty.”