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View a eulogy for Richard Dean Kittelson, USMA '58, who passed away on December 4, 1979.

Richard Dean Kittelson

West Point, 1958

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by John Bradley on September 16, 2000:

On one of the longer patrols in the mountains of North Georgia, Dick Kittelson and I were ranger buddies. I started out carrying a BAR which for some reason seemed to be my permanently assigned weapon on these patrols. We had been climbing for some time, and the BAR was making life truly miserable for me. About midnight, we came to a large cut in the mountain that required climbing using exposed tree roots. Wrestling with the roots and the BAR just about did me in. Dick,coming up behind carrying an M-1, offered to take the BAR and let me have his M-1. I accepted immediately. Dick carried the weapon for the rest of the patrol. His action was the greatest act of kindness that I experienced in Ranger School. And since we were both runts, I knew that the damned BAR gave him as much trouble as it did me.

Shortly after joining the 101st Airborne Division in January 1959, Dick and I got adjoining rooms at the end of the old World War II barracks that served as BOQs at Fort Campbell. We had two small rooms and shared an adjoining bath in the "best suite" in the place. Dick served with the division's cavalry troop at the time; I was with Charlie Company, 1st Airborne Battle Group, 501st Infantry. We enjoyed our time there and put up with the terrible coal burning furnace that provided our heat. We were often too cold, and when we called for heat, the "special duty" troopers who served on the fireman detail would stoke the fires so much that we would then burn up. Our time together ended, when our furnace broke down, and we had to find lesser accomodations in other BOQs.

I always enjoyed working with Dick. He was a top flight young officer and I was saddened by his early death.

Pax vobiscum. RIP.

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