Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
I remember a couple of things from the dialogues. I was in a meeting before the Abrams
meeting with Lieutenant Generals Sid Berry and Fred Clarke. Berry had not opposed it yet,
but he was listening as Fred Clarke was trying to bring him about. I remember one of his
questions. Sid Berry's question was, "Well, Fred, aren't you really looking for something
special in your district engineers?" Well, I could see it was kind of a loaded question: If you
want something special, then you're not talking about "my" centralized selection, you don't
want to buy in to the rules. You want something different, so you go run your own system to
handle that.
"You know," General Berry said, "something like professional registration or certain special
or technical kinds of capabilities." Well, we engineers had professed we wanted professional
registration in the Corps among our engineers. It had always been a desired thing, not a "have
to" thing.
So, Fred Clarke's answer was very direct and really fine. It was, "You know, Sid, I really
want the same thing that you say the Army wants when it selects its commanders. The most
important thing to me for selecting a district engineer would be success in the previous level
of command. I want somebody who succeeded as a battalion commander, who shows he can
take resources and face problems and tight timelines and stress and work through people,
work it all together and make it turn out and produce a quality product." He continued,
"That's the same thing you're telling a troop command selection board. So, no, I don't want
anything special; I'd be very satisfied when your board sits down and picks the best guy, and
I can live with that best guy."
"As far as professional registration, I'd still like it. I think we're still going to encourage our
folks to get it. We'll be ahead of the game when almost all of those folks have professional
registration. To say that's a `have to' or the final kicker, no; the thing I really want is
knowing we've got the best people going to the command."
Even after that, Sid Berry nonconcurred, but I think that was probably a telling argument
when General Clarke went up to see General Abrams.
Q:
That's an interesting path for a program to follow, personnel programs nonconcurred by
DCSPER, but approved by the Chief of Staff.
A:
Well, General Abrams had a real, down-to-earth knack for solving things that way; that is, if
there is an issue, work it to the end and then bring everybody in and everybody give it their
best shot, and then he'd decide. So, he did it.
Q:
So, would one way of looking at this be that in order to prevent a two-tiered system that
might not be favorable to the district engineers, the Chief was willing to give up a little of the
input that he had under the old system in selecting district engineers. Is that one way of
looking at it? You give a little and you get a little?
A:
Well, I think I saw it that way when I first started off. Seeing how things were working, I
think you'd have to ask him. I believe General Clarke would have said that he recognized
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