John W. Morris
Just back from South Vietnam, General Morris arrived in Omaha, Nebraska, with his wife to
assume command of the Missouri River Division in June 1970.
On the military construction side, the area was even larger. It included 11 states and served more
major commands than any other division. We had the Strategic Air Command in Omaha, the
Military Airlift Command at Scott Air Force Base outside of St. Louis, the North American Air
Defense Command [NORAD] at Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs, the Air Force
Academy of course, plus a large number of air bases and airfields that had considerable MRD
work on them. The Army side included Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Carson, Fort Riley, Fort
Leavenworth, numerous ammunition manufacturing plants, and finally, Rocky Mountain Arsenal,
which stands alone as a separate problem, which we'll have to discuss. All in all, the Missouri
River Division had a full plate of military clients as well as the environmental program, which
impacted on both the civil works and military missions although, in the early 1970s the former
to a much greater degree.
So my earlier thoughts that the Missouri River Division wasn't all that busy soon vanished with
the understanding that if we did nothing else except bring the procedures and the policies within
MRD in line with the Chief of Engineers' environmental objectives, it would be a full
assignment.
We had two districts, Omaha District with Colonel Pat Pendergast as district engineer and the
Kansas City District with Colonel Andy Anderson, both outstanding district engineers. Each was
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