Keep, Richard

Richard Keep was born September 28, 1924 in Sanborn, Minnesota. The family moved to Iowa when he was two, and he grew up on a farm there with his two younger brothers, not far from the small town of Delta. The family lived through the difficult days of the Great Depression, though as Richard recalls everyone was in the same boat – and they didn’t consider themselves to be poor. He grew up the same as any other teenage boy in 1930s Iowa, attending a local school, playing baseball and hockey, and fishing and hunting.  Pearl Harbor would be the event that would change his generation’s destiny:  Richard was delivering Sunday papers that December 7, when one of his customers came out on his porch and said he’d heard about the attack on the radio.  Richard turned 18 the following year, and he registered for the draft, even though he could have applied for a farmers’ exemption.  After going through his army physical and induction, he was sent to Fort Riley, where he began his training in a cavalry replacement unit.  From there they went to Fort Meade, and then to New York City to board the troop ship, which arrived in Wales after a difficult two week journey. Unlike many of the men, Richard was already married when he went overseas, having met his wife Carol in high school.  He spent additional time in training while in England, he was assigned a number of tasks before being assigned to the 12th Armored and sent across the Channel to France.  Once in Normandy the 12th began its move to the east, and Richard was in a reconnaissance squad, leading the way and looking for the enemy, and he was in intense combat situations many times as they moved through France and into Germany itself.  The 12th Armored also took part in the liberation of concentration camps near Landsberg, the very place where Hitler had been imprisoned and authored Mein Kampf.  The end of the war came in May 1945: Richard heard about it on a recon patrol, and he and the other men celebrated with some wine at a German farmhouse.  He spent about 3 months in Germany after the war before he was able to return home to his young wife; he went on to find work and together they made their way in postwar America.  Crestwood students were fortunate to zoom with Richard Keep in February 2026.