________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
infantryman, the artilleryman, the tanker--I mean, the people in those combat arms as
opposed to all the other combat arms and the other services.
So, I think there was a resistance to see a break in the model they had created, thinking there
would be further "erosion."
And, in fact, there was. AMC came in and wanted the project managers centrally selected--
later approved; wanted the lab commanders centrally selected--later approved. Others came
in, I believe in the intelligence arena, and wanted certain positions where not only military
but a lot of civilians were involved centrally selected--later approved. In my viewpoint,
those things were good for the Army.
With a list of 25 selected commanders when we needed 15 district engineers and 10 troop
commanders, I could still work and prescribe a fit of a round peg in a round hole, square peg
in a square hole, and sort the selectees by where their druthers were, where they best fit, and
where their experience was.
Some people move very decidedly in one direction or another; others are in the middle, on
the margin. So, there is some back and forth. If you look at what OPMS was touted to be--
and that is, get the right person in the right job because the Army deserves that--we should
let people specialize and we should get the right people to command troops and the right
people in all those jobs. That is what we were just talking about, sticking the right people in
the jobs.
Now we would have a system for all branches to do what was best. For the engineers, we'd
have a system whereby a board would meet, and that board would recommend the best 25
officers to go to command that year from their review of the records. It was no longer the old
boy network and no longer just assigning an officer how he views his opportunities. Now
we're talking about a board independent of those influences that recommends the top 25.
Then when Colonels Division goes to assign them, there is still the ability to work the system
and the officer's druthers, using the Chief of Engineers' slating system to determine which
one is the right one to go to which position. So, it seemed like we were better off.
Your question was, why did people oppose it. I think it is because they were thinking
simplistically of a narrow model that had been derived, and they didn't want to have
exceptions to it.
Q:
So, those other people weren't really involved in originally developing this? The ones that
now were objecting to it?
A:
I don't know. See, the Suplizio work group were lieutenant colonels and majors, at my level,
which were always engaged in dialogue as to what's right or not. Yet, they were pressured to
put together their briefing charts and go brief directors of the Officer Personnel Directorate
and the Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel. I'd never been assigned to the Pentagon at that
time, so how that worked was a mystery.
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