Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
sitting behind the obstacle even one or two kilometers. This certainly was not a breach done
by tankers only, but a combined arms breach using all maneuver and fire support arms.
A deliberate breach, then, was that breach in which you are stopped, facing a formidable
defense line that you must plan for, send out scouts, recon, assemble, use diversions and
whatever else you can to have surprise and make the deliberate breach--much like in DESERT
STORM when we made our first assault. That was certainly a deliberate breach. We had time
for photos, ground recons, figuring out all we needed to do in each unit and place and
detailed planning and preparation on how the breach would be executed.
So, back to the essence of the question. When an officer comes out of the advanced course,
as I found out later, the person is a product of his experiences. So, we found many
commanders knew quite well what engineers should do and were receptive to advice and
were comfortable with all of this being worked. Others really didn't understand where they
were, thought almost simplistically, like engineers should be along for the ride. "When I have
a problem, I'll send for the engineers." Of course, in today's modern armor operations you
don't have time to send for them.
That brings to mind the movie A Bridge Too Far. When the British Corps was strung out on
a single road and came upon a major river obstacle, the commander radioed, "Send back for
the bridge." It took hours for the bridge to come forward. The commander has to know the
water obstacle is out there and have the bridge in formation with him when he needs it. It is
part of the commander's concept translated into operational plans and executed if you're
going to fight in today's armor and heavy battle operations.
What I found then was that some commanders were quite attuned to what's going on; some
were tuned so that wasn't their prime thing. I also found everybody was receptive to ideas to
make things better and to fight better.
General Kroesen as a commander was well attuned to fighting the battle and the necessity for
complete interaction of combined arms. General Ott, who followed him, likewise was really
attuned to the need for a combined arms fight, not just a single branch or service kind of
fight. As a major subordinate commander in the Corps, I felt my job, the senior engineer
commander, was to meet with the division commanders and create initiatives for us to work
well together.
Combined arms and battle preparations were major motivators for me. A major thing I took
on was to move the 7th Engineer Brigade to the field more often. As I went around the
Corps, I would tell each and every maneuver commander that when they went to the field on
an exercise, we wanted to be with them and we would contribute to their operation, their
training exercise, and support it with engineers. If they were in the field, we wanted to be in
the field with them. That meant we increased our field time considerably, and it paid
dividends.
When I arrived in July of '76, the FTX for REFORGER '76 was to occur in September. I
found the 7th Engineer Brigade headquarters was not going to the field as part of the Corps.
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