Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
being rethought. Missions changed, as did relationships, and we had everybody doing some
creative thinking, not just hanging with the old.
I don't know how I got into that.
Q:
Comparing the two.
A:
So, I always think that the Warsaw Pact threat has been the paramount thing driving training
and the Army in Europe. I think there have probably been some years where other things
were also high on the platter because they had to be dealt with.
Q:
I think we may be at the point to wrap up the 3d Armored Division, unless there are other
things that you can think of about your experiences there that we should talk about.
A:
I'd like to say one more thing about my first assignment. I mentioned it before. USAREUR
was a great place to start. I've always thought, as I mentioned, that starting off as a junior
officer in Europe with a heavy division--where you had the mission, general defense plan,
"Frontier of Freedom," an orientation away from post, thinking, training, and being able to
fight over a big mass of terrain--was a tremendous beginning. You couldn't just fall out to
train on post or, say, the far side of Fort Riley, for instance, or even the western side of Fort
Hood, as big as that is. You had to think in terms of real geography and terrain and real
fighting. You had to deal with the problems of a deployed Army, that is, soldiers and families
away from home, and a populace.
With all those ingredients, you also had the cultural aspects of being over there, which were
fun. The whole thinking of the heavy division was something that I think is awfully
important for an engineer officer who has to know that we do our job in combined arms.
Combined arms in the context of the heavy division in Germany is movement, working on
frag orders, being able to be flexible enough to change in midstream, and it's not a set piece
at all.
So, even later in an airborne division--which is strategic in its rapidity of deployment but
methodical after it hits the ground--my experience was prompted by that same kind of
thinking that we ought to be able to operate by the frag order; we have to be flexible enough
to change; we have to be mobile and act decisively. Then later, when I went back to Germany
and the VII Corps, 7th Engineer Brigade, those same kinds of things were there.
Being in an armored division at the start meant I really learned combined arms, that our
reason to be is not "engineer" but our reason to be is to ensure that the division's major
weapons systems, the tank and the Bradley, get to where the mission is. The very key role
that the engineer has--dual-hatted--both leading engineer troops and also providing
engineer counsel and guidance to his commander, is paramount. We put a lot on our engineer
platoon leaders and company commanders but nothing more than what you get in that
experience in Europe.
That ability to think on the move, the ability to understand that you do it that way by
combined arms, really is something you learn best in Europe in an armored division.
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