Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
regional peers. General Morris was hearing both sides. I think I won when I said that not only
are public affairs officers down a grade, but the top personnel guy in every one of these
places is one grade higher than the public affairs officer, and I didn't understand that, either.
General Morris turned to the deputy personnel person there, whose name I don't remember,
and said, "Why is that?" The personnel guy said, "Well, probably because the personnel
position is more important to the Corps." He was saying that, of course, to General Morris,
who was the one who had been lampooning Public Affairs for not doing the job--that the
Corps' public image was so bad; we ought to do something to get it right.
He now had a public affairs program that we had developed, that he was aware of, and we
were trying to get it right. He understood that one thing was that you really ought to staff at a
grade level that is representative of the kind of people you deal with.
So, General Morris stood up and said to him, "You said what?" So, it was repeated, and
General Morris said, "We need to raise the grade level." The one being considered at that
time was the Lower Mississippi Valley Division, Herb Kassner's position. Gene Brown at
the South Atlantic Division and others followed here and there. We never thought that
necessarily they'd all be equal across the board, as we do have differences in divisional
responsibility. That was the start. I would guess, the way things go, that where they are today
is where people wished it to be and made it happen. Where they're not today, those particular
bosses didn't feel strongly, and the issue went away.
Q:
When you brought in some new people, did you make organizational changes in how the
office was structured in the headquarters to address public affairs?
A:
Oh, not really; we changed a few assignments. One of the things I wanted to do was to bring
somebody in who could speak "Army speak" so they could take over the speech writing bit
that I was doing and have a sense for tracking Army issues.
General [Walter] Bachus at that time headed our Facility Engineer Directorate, and we had a
great focus on doing facility engineering better. In Public Affairs, we had nobody to interact
with it. Thus, we needed to have somebody deal with him. Military Construction had been
there all along. Major General Bates Burnell was doing that and it was ongoing.
I pointed some public affairs folks so they were oriented to service, that is, a point of contact
to service certain arenas. Ed Green was still working with Civil Works, but I had somebody
now, Gil Gilchrist, who was to be the Facilities person. I could turn to him and say, "Run
down there and find out what General Bachus wants with these."
Q:
Was that Warren Pappin? Or the other person?
A:
No, it wasn't Warren Pappin. Gil Gilchrist, who came from the Army Chief of Information.
Anyway, it was that kind of an orientation. Locke Mouton was the deputy director. He was a
very strong person, very set in his ways, and contributed greatly to the Corps over the years.
He was also very set in what he would do. He did some things well, and some things he
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