Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
switched during my brigade command, so then I didn't get the opportunity to go two back to
back.
Of course my recommendation had been not to let people do that, so the irony being that the
system had worked for a number of years, and about the time when I might have the good
fortune of doing both, the system changed. So, I got the opportunity to go to Heidelberg for a
year to work as a staff engineer, and then come back to the Pentagon in the Office of the
Assistant Chief of Engineers for a year instead.
In the end, if anything made the difference between my selection for brigadier later on, which
happened just after I arrived in the Deputy ACE's [Assistant Chief of Engineers] job, it was
probably the fact that I did not go off to a second command job but went instead to
Heidelberg. There I worked on some very tough issues that were visible Armywide. So, I
would suppose that when the board looked at my file, they saw that I had had those tough
jobs I had mentioned, not only command, but also in Heidelberg doing a tough job. Well, the
irony might be that I didn't get the opportunity to do two in a row, but from the standpoint of
potential for selection, it probably worked out better for me.
Office of the Chief of Staff of the Army
Q:
Your next assignment in '74'75 was assistant to the Director of the Army Staff, Office of
the Chief of Staff of the Army. What did that position involve, and how did you get to that
position?
A:
Well, that was an interesting period. The bottom line of all this was that I was completing
two years as an assignment officer, and you get a certain burnout feeling when you're doing
the same things over again. I had changed, or helped change, the system, and that was
exciting, but I wasn't going to go off and be a district engineer in the next assignment like
Chuck Fiala and all my predecessors had done. So, I felt it was time to seek a change in
responsibility here in town while I was here. It was time for something new.
You know, when you're in the Army, you maybe get addicted to change. That is, you enjoy
the new challenge every couple of years or so in a new position. Maybe you don't always
enjoy the physical move, but you get a sense when you've sort of maxed out in your
professional development in a particular area, your juices aren't as charged as they were
before, and you really need to seek something different. So, that's about where I was as we
ended that time. Nobody else had ever been there more than a couple of years--that was
about the right tour--and I knew there was a board meeting and I was in the primary zone for
colonel and thought I would be selected.
So, if I stayed in MILPERCEN another year I'd be doing the same kind of things over again,
so I ought to seek to do something in the Office of the Chief of Engineers or in the Pentagon.
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