ARMED FORCES: Forces on the Ground

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Back to Earth. The passion for missilery has brought the Army the U.S.'s best arsenal of operational tactical missiles (Redstone, Corporal, Honest John, Nike, etc.), and the Huntsville Arsenal's intermediate-range Jupiter turned out to be the first U.S. missile to launch a satellite in the embarrassing days after Sputnik I. But the high cost of shooting minds and money on Big Space worried Army thinkers who were certain that hard ground-war planning and weaponry had been neglected in the process. The Army has yet to replace the heavy, obsolete M-1 rifle with the officially approved, fast-firing M-14, to replace the World War I .30-cal. machine gun with the new M60, or to come up with a tank to match the Russian T-54 now in the field. "For $5 billion worth of troop equipment," cracked one division commander last month, "I'd trade Huntsville away in a minute."

Through this spark-charged atmosphere,

Lem Lemnitzer moved like a nonconductor. In December he smoothly headed off a drive by the new civilian space agency (NASA) to take over Huntsville, but he promised to serve any NASA needs. His own strongest efforts had long since been thrown behind development of more earthy necessities, e.g., a mortar-spotting radar in 1953, a plastic grenade launcher this year. His steady emphasis on combat readiness as top priority promises to scale the Army's space push down to manageable proportions. In word and deed he seemed just the steady old pro the Army needed to get back on solid ground and carry on from there.

Rodeo's Home. Second of three sons of a patient, pious couple of German-Lutheran descent. Lyman Lemnitzer was born Aug. 29, 1899, in Honesdale, Pa. (pop. 6,000). Thrifty father William worked up in 53 years at the local shoemaking plant from odd-job boy to vice-president, built a fortresslike house on the right bank of the Lackawaxen River (one small bridge later named after Lyman). Poorer kids ate butter, but the Lemnitzer boys got their bread dry or lard smeared. They dutifully did their chores (dishwashing, lawn mowing), earned their spending money at part-time jobs. Lyman clerked at Mike Bergstein's Main Street store, developed an Army-useful talent for shortening pants.

The disciplined life had its lighter moments. Lyman, the daring one, taught younger brother Ernest (now with a building-construction firm in Hackensack, N.J.) how to swim, shook the town each July 4 with blasts from his is-inch-long toy cannon, set off a homemade bomb in the stone quarry, practiced his rifle marksmanship (he later became one of the Army's best) in the attic on rainy days with a .22. One winter, while crust riding downhill on his sled, he lost control, rammed head first into a stone wall. Unshaken, he would have gone calmly back up for another slide had not friends persuaded him to go to the doctor—who took six stitches to close the gap. Thenceforth.

Lyman suffered in silence the nickname "Rocko." (WELCOME HOME, ROCKO, read 1945 Honesdale banners.) Growing up, Lem learned golf, polished it into his present long-drive, low-80s game (one back-home partner on Honesdale's nine-hole course: Art Wall, 1959 Masters champion).