Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
supervising execution at the same time. So, the lieutenant in the everyday battle that goes on
just isn't capable of doing sufficient recon for the next operation while executing something
that may be going on at the same time, such as putting in a minefield, getting prepared for
breaching operations, and the rest of it. You can turn some of that over to the platoon
sergeant, but what we need really is a kind of leadership comparable to what the infantry and
armor have--that is, a captain supporting that task force. So, it would be a captain company
commander doing those recons with the other infantry and armored captain company
commanders while the lieutenants--and the sergeants--are preparing the platoons or off
executing their missions.
So, once again, my experience back then in the 23d Engineer Battalion, as well as broadening
for me, also proved to me that you really can't get it done in sustained battle day after day
with that engineer organization. There was a void in capability, and we needed to correct it
by putting the same level of leadership planning staff capability in this maneuver element.
Mind what I said before, engineers maneuver like armor and infantry. To do that, we had to
be comparable to the speed of the heavy division battle. So, those lessons were ingredients
that later on became input to EForce.
Q:
Just one other issue about being platoon leader. You were talking about discipline and
morale problems in the '70s. What about during this period of working with troops? Any
lessons you learned there about morale, discipline, working in a foreign country, cultural
problems?
A:
Well, for the young lieutenant, this is his first hands-on leadership experience. It is where you
really find out about yourself and whether you can put it together. How you work that platoon
sergeant and three squad leaders and your 27 people makes you learn a lot about yourself.
You learn what works and what doesn't work, and whom you can trust and whom you can't
trust, what you need to check and what you don't need to check, and you learn about people
and their foibles and the fact they're humans and they respond to different things.
So, I had a platoon made up of common, ordinary folks. There were some good folks, some
bad folks. They were not the caliber of folks we have today in our all-recruited Army,
without doubt. We had our racial problems back then too. We had the black bars and the
white bars. One of the banes of a lieutenant's existence in those days was courtesy patrol.
My, did we hate to be on courtesy patrol! The concept was in the 3d Armored Division that if
we had people out getting drunk, getting in a fight, we would find them and bring them home
before the military police brought them home. I think I pulled courtesy patrol every--it
seemed like every fourth or fifth weekend. I was given a jeep and went out with a
noncommissioned officer. Typically I would take a black noncommissioned officer so that
we would go together into either black bars or white bars. We would try to walk around and
be present. When we found somebody who'd already had too much to drink, we would get
him back to his unit--that is, turn him into his unit with no report to the military police--
take care of our own that way.
So, you really did learn about life, people, what motivates people, what turns them on or
turns them off, and yourself in those days. It was a great leadership laboratory, if you will.
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