Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
In the Supply Maintenance Division, those folks were supporting facility engineers with
supply and maintenance support and data. The DEH in VII Corps had its own supply and
maintenance activity, ordering various kinds of things.
When a community facility engineer had a problem, they could call Charlie McNeill and he'd
send somebody out to help them. He was designated to be that kind of person. I wouldn't
send anyone from the USAREUR staff, Campbell Barracks, because Charlie McNeill would
do that. I would deal primarily with the Corps DEH on programming or policy or funding
issues, but not on the execution. Well, you say, it sounds like with TR1, ammunition and
POMCUS, I was doing a lot of execution. We were. That was a special kind of thing. ISAE
was involved in that, too, but we were the drivers of that rapid reinforcement of NATO
initiative and we were at the early point in a program where driving and pushing and
articulating and networking was really the thing getting it off the ground and moving.
Also within ISAE was the U.S. Army Real Estate Agency, Europe, which had been a
separate entity before that. They didn't move from Frankfurt. Charlie McNeill was now
responsible for it.
So, as an operating activity there was somebody there who could be concerned with helping
the facility engineer and a focal point for all of those things that didn't have to be in
Campbell Barracks. It was the prototype for the Engineering and Housing Support Center
under the Office of the Chief of Engineers. It was determined that we ought to have an
organization for the Army to do what ISAE did for Europe. It's the irony that the Engineering
and Housing Support Center happened about the time that ISAE went into demise.
Q:
During even deeper staff cuts at USAREUR, I guess.
A:
Well, that happened before I arrived back at USAREUR in '87. It took place during Major
General Scott Smith's time as the DCSENGR. Just as Generals Blanchard and Groves had
driven certain approaches in Staff '77 to separate execution from policy planning, General
Glen Otis's drive was, "We've become bloated. We need to streamline. We ought to stop
doing things." Okay, so earlier we had separated planning, programming, and budgeting from
execution, maybe we shouldn't execute anything at USAREUR headquarters. Maybe we
don't need an ISAE that sends people down to help facility engineers. Maybe they don't get
any help. Maybe we can't afford to have folks that only get around to a facility engineer
every 9 to 10 months. Maybe that's not helpful enough. Maybe we better take those 90
people and send 2 out to each community and get 2 more warm bodies down there to work,
or do it from Corps. Let's don't necessarily expect that we have to support.
Now, I'm giving you that from what somebody's told me because I didn't go through the
experience. Scott Smith would have to tell you that or Major General Chuck Fiala, who was
Chief of Staff in USAREUR at the time. Those were the driving notions, I believe, that then
made the ISAE demise happen. Some functions and activities, though, still had to exist, like
the Real Estate Agency, Europe. So, it returned to the Real Estate Division located in
DCSENGR USAREUR. The direct link was to George Fuentes, the Chief of Real Estate. He
no longer had to go through Charlie McNeill, an independent arm. Which is better? Probably
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