Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
engineer battalion commander's whole staff and the maintenance capability being able to
help get that ADM platoon ready to go, now I had one company and one overworked
maintenance warrant who had to get some platoon ready to go every week. Thus, we carried
a high vulnerability for failure, which before had been spread to all battalions, but they also
could provide a lot of resources to help.
We had a major commanding that ADM company. When this poor guy left I got a new one in
there, and all of a sudden we started failing inspections. It all came home when I saw my own
tail on the line, frankly. I tried to get into and understand the systemic problems. It became
obvious that what I had had in the previous company commander was somebody whose
strengths carried the day and who did all those things that all those other battalion
commanders already had done to pass--switching trucks from one platoon to another,
repainting the bumper numbers, taking all the best trucks, but after a while they too wear out.
We were really living on the margin of risk of accomplishing the mission because we were so
thin. We were short people so he would have to move people from one platoon to another.
We weren't ready for wartime but we were accomplishing a lot of different tasks.
So, in the middle of 1977 I went to General Dave Ott, the 7th Corps commander, who had
recently called down and said, "What's going on?" I briefed him and proposed major changes
of how we in the Corps would employ ADM. This became the new modus operandi.
Basically, we needed to cut out some of the ADM teams. In the 7th Brigade at that time we
had gone to the point that, no matter how many people we were short, we'd still field every
required team. Yet, a soldier had to have certain clearances before he could handle the release
material, and you couldn't get those clearances unless you'd been in the Army so long. So, as
the personnel system delivered us fewer people and more junior people who hadn't been
there long enough, we were down to the margin where there was only the absolute minimum
number. Thus, the threshold for failure was really reduced, and nobody wants to fail. I didn't
want them to fail--that's not good for their morale. I mean, we all wanted to succeed.
So, we changed the philosophy. If the system could not provide us the resources, we would
stand down teams, but we would field teams that met minimum base requirements. I mean, if
we were authorized a five-man team we'd never go with less than four, even though we've
been previously going with three. We actually stood down the teams, and the Corps put it
into their operational plans that we only had so many operational teams at that moment.
Thus, the pressure was on the system to improve, much like readiness reporting is supposed
to do for other units.
We also got priority from the Corps to get 30 new trucks because our trucks were worn out.
Thus, we didn't have to take the old wire-and-shoestring vehicles back again and again, but
had some vehicles that might pass inspection.
Then, significantly, we changed the whole concept of operations from taking the ADM
forward all the way to delivering it on call, much like artillery. Thus, once someone wanted
to employ a demolition munition, they, the infantry, wouldn't have to go all the way back to
the depot, vicinity of Kaiserslautern, to pick it up. It seemed absurd that you would fly an
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