________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
facility requirements. If the DCSLOG wanted to change something and it had to do with
facilities, the facilities inventory didn't float, but changed only by our Storage Branch
inventory.
So, it came that there were several of us at the colonel level who began to network in the
USAREUR headquarters considerably. Four of us were almost always at these many
different meetings involved with trying to sort out these operational enhancements. One of
those was Bob Dacey, an engineer who was then the plans officer in the Office of the
DCSOPS. Another, Rod Ferguson, was in the Office of the DCSRM [Deputy Chief of Staff
for Resource Management], a money, budget, and program guy. I was in the Office of the
DCSENGR, and Colonel Walt Kastenmayer was with the Office of the DCSLOG, the
colonel responsible for the supply and maintenance division.
When we went to a decision briefing over in the Keys Building conference room, all four of
us would be there. We would have to all basically talk, agree that it was "This amount of
things that needed to be stored, this amount of facilities required," and "Yes, it fit the
operations stationing plan" and "Yes, we had money in the program to do it." We were
always talking, networking. I'll bet I talked to those other three guys twice a day throughout
this period as we tried to work the many issues involved.
I should go on to say our work evolved to the point of many trips back to the United States to
brief at the Pentagon. There were doubts that we were proceeding fast enough. I guess there's
always been some sort of a great understanding and credibility problem between USAREUR
and the Department of the Army. Really, there shouldn't be; we're all pulling the same way.
Often it's, "Those guys said," or, "They don't understand over here in the Pentagon," or, "It's
the Imperial Seventh Army over there, always got to have it their way."
Actually, many things were different in Europe--quite a number, as a matter of fact, like the
NATO construction program. We were using other money, different sets of rules, not
Department of the Army's rules. We had to do construction through German agencies. We
really had to go by certain other rules, not the same rules we had back here in the Army for
military construction. When you're crossing international boundaries, there are other things,
conventions, agreements, rules.
General Blanchard, Commander in Chief, wanted to send a team back to brief the Army Staff
on how we were proceeding, basically to say, "We really do have our act together over here.
We are proceeding on POMCUS sites four, five, and six. We do know what ammunition we
want, we do know what theater reserve we want, and this is the whole program."
We were called to the Chief of Staff's office one afternoon. At that meeting were the
DCSLOG, DCSRM, DCSOPS, and DCSENGR. General Groves wanted to decide how we
were going to address this credibility problem with the Department of the Army. He
indicated that General Blanchard had decided to send back this team and asked who should
head it. Every Deputy Chief of Staff looked at every other one, and by and by I got picked. I
was in the back row and had not said anything.
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