Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
Q:
Was there a sense, and this is going a little bit beyond the assignment, but your comments
made me think about it--was there a sense at the beginning or did that sense grow, of which
engineer commands, engineer districts, were tough jobs or tougher jobs than some others? Or
did the board depend on the engineer generals there to give them that input? Were some
engineer districts more controversial, with harder jobs perhaps than others were?
A:
You're talking about brigadier general selection.
Q:
Yes, that's going a little beyond there.
A:
I think perennially that has been a question and perennially one that people have dialogued
and discussed. Often the engineer board member has been asked to explain just what is a
district.
I sat as a member of a brigadier general board. As we met together, as a full board, before we
broke down into three panels, they asked me to comment on districts, just as the board
president asked people to comment on project managers, depot commanders, and others.
Even during the board, people would come up to me and say, "Now that I read the files, I'm
starting to see this. What really is a district, anyway? It really looks like a tough job."
You know, when we engineers wrote a job description, we really wanted to make sure we
threw in all the stakes a person had, worry about the fact that they had this watershed or that
watershed--I mean, that's pretty tough for a board person to decipher in the short amount of
time that he had to look at a file.
So, it was an important discussion point. That's why we changed the title to district
commanders as opposed to district engineers, to make sure that the command was plain to
everyone. That's why there has been a continued emphasis to describe the command in short
terms that really make the point.
Everybody in the Army knows what infantry brigade command is, and everybody knows
what division artillery command is because everybody's been stationed where there is a
division that has all these components.
On a board many don't know about an engineer brigade because we haven't got many of
those. So, you might have to explain that too. You talk about engineer command, district
engineer command, and what that really means. Being able to describe it in terms of being
responsible for people, being responsible for duress, stress, large contract amounts, and those
important characteristics is essential for the engineer board member.
I think an engineer on a board does have to explain that. The board I was on, having had that
discussion, selected five engineers. A couple were selected who had been district engineers--
not a question and the troop commander selectees--not a question.
I think it fell between the strength of their overall reports. The district engineer was seen
throughout his jobs, and he had served in other important jobs, as having had a lot of tough
jobs. One of them, his command job, was with a district. He was seen as a person who really
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