Gregg Laroix McKee

GREGG LaROIX McKEE
April 23, 1918 ~ May 4, 2008

Loving Husband and Father, Officer, Diplomat, Scientist, Inventor, Art Historian and Scholar.

MONTEREY – Colonel Gregg LaRoix McKee, Armor, U.S. Army, Retired, passed away peacefully on Sunday, May 4 at Westland House in Monterey. He celebrated his 90th birthday with friends and family only 11 days earlier.
Gregg McKee was born on April 23, 1918 to Franc Whitmore McKee and Glenn L. McKee in Hazelton, PA. His mother's love of knowledge and his father's gift as an inventor planted in Gregg the seeds of a rich and rewarding lifetime of intellectual growth and challenge.
A seminal experience in Gregg McKee's early life lay in his years at West Point, which influenced his approach to life from that time forward with a strong respect for intellectual challenge and personal integrity. Graduating in 1941 and commissioned initially in the Cavalry before moving to Armor, he saw extensive combat in Europe as the Plans and Operations Officer for Combat Commands A and later, R, 5th Armored Division from Normandy to the Rhine. CCA of the 5th was Patton's point at Argentan and was the first U.S. unit to reach and enter Germany. Gregg discovered and recognized the first “Q-Site” to be overrun by U.S. forces; these were key German decoy sites for misleading British bombers and defending German industrial targets. Combat Command R was the first Allied unit through the Sigfried Line and captured enemy forces in the bloody battles of the Hurtgen Forest. With victory in Europe, Gregg was assigned to the U.S. Chinese Combat Command in Kunming. He was one of several senior American officers, who together with Nationalist Chinese representatives, arranged for the formal surrender in Nanjing of the Japanese forces in China.
After graduating from West Point and before the war, Gregg met and married the love of his life, Mildred “Mickey” Sturdivant of Minter City, Mississippi, always referred to as his “bride.” Mickey's brother, Frank Sturdivant, West Point Class of '38, had been Gregg's squad leader at the academy. Through some happy chance, Frank was Commandant of Cadets at Minter Field in Bakersfield, then Gregg's hometown. After graduation in June '41, Gregg spent six weeks leave in Bakersfield before his duty assignment. He met Mickey while she was visiting her brother and the rest is history. He proposed after less than a dozen dates; she accepted and married him the following spring in Mississippi. Begun in April 1942, their “made-in-heaven” marriage continued until Mickey's death in 2006.
After the war, and with his growing family along, Gregg served three years as a Tactical Officer commanding K1 Company of Cadets at West Point. He then taught Ordnance for a year and wrote four texts for those classes, on Military Explosives, Conventional and Atomic Weapons and Terminal Ballistics. Later, Gregg became a diplomat as Assistant Army Attaché with the American Embassy in Lisbon, Portugal, followed by duties at Ft. Knox, Kentucky and then two years in Bangkok, Thailand.
While at Ft. Knox, difficulties with a heavy cargo vehicle in its tenth year of testing sparked his invention of the Army GOER family of vehicles. When the going got rough in Vietnam, GOERS quickly proved their worth by moving 50 million pounds of critical cargo when nothing else could move through the monsoon rains. During this time he also invented the TERRAG, a self-propelled, self-erectable floating bridge as well as the first air cushion cargo vehicle anywhere.
Deciding that he couldn't educate four young sons on a Colonel's pay of $805 a month, Gregg retired from the Army in 1962. He joined FMC Corporation in San Jose, CA and proceeded to invent three composite armor systems incorporating the use of metal and ceramics. This was the first development of ceramic armor, which has since progressed to worldwide application. The patents were labeled with “SECRET” Security Classification and were not released in public until 1992, almost 30 years later.
Gregg then joined Litton Industries in Monterey. He and Mickey settled in Carmel, building their dream house at the mouth of Carmel Valley. Before they could move in, Gregg was asked to go to Singapore as Project Director of a Systems Engineering Project for their Ministry of Defense. Those years fostered a reacquaintance with China for Gregg and a new appreciation for the art of Chinese ceramics for Mickey. Soon, Gregg, too, was engaged with the beautiful ceramics and another of life's loves was born. Gregg and Mickey's interests and lectures led many to travel with them on their multiple trips back to China on ceramic quests and tours. They later were co-founders of the Oriental Art Society of the Monterey Peninsula, which has just celebrated its 25th year.
Gregg was in China 29 times counting his WWII service there. He remained convinced that friendly, cooperative, mutually beneficial relations between our two countries are necessary and attainable if the world is to realize the potential of the 21st Century. At the time of his passing, Gregg was using all his energy to finish his book on prehistoric Chinese jade burial objects, specifically the Cong (pronounced “t'sung”). The title will be Solved at Last and It's About Time!
Gregg McKee truly loved America and he loved and lived life to the fullest. He conducted his life guided by the quotation “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
Gregg McKee is survived by his four sons, Gregg L. McKee, Jr. and his wife, Sandy of Corral de Tierra; Archibald S. McKee and his wife, Grace of Apollo Beach, Florida; Glenn S. McKee of Pacific Grove and Frank W. McKee and his wife, Susan of Los Altos. Gregg felt extremely blessed to have eight grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
The Paul Mortuary is handling arrangements. Visitation will be Tuesday, May 13, 2008 from 3-5pm at Paul Mortuary. A private family burial is planned later in the week and a Memorial Service is scheduled at St. Dunstan's Episcopal Church in Carmel Valley on May 17, 2008 at 11:00am. The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, any memorial donation be made to The Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula.