________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
battle area. The National Training Center and the lessons we were learning out of there
showed that our Army of Excellence designs were flawed. We had to consider a near-term
refinement; we couldn't wait another 15 years. Then we developed the concept of EForce,
which addressed the communications zone and the echelons above Corps in our first year and
then we addressed the light forces in the second year because the Army and TRADOC were
focused on that.
Then we focused on the close combat heavy part of the engineer force--that is, the engineers
in support of our armored and mechanized infantry divisions in the NATO environment--as
the place where we were most broken. Out of that, then, developed our new concept for the
division engineer, the regimental-sized organization, in the close combat heavy force. So, all
of that developed and was coming to a culmination in late 1985. Want me to go on?
Q:
Yes, take it on. That's exactly what we want you to do.
A:
So, in 1985 General Vuono left to become the DCSOPS of the Army and General RisCassi
came in to command CAC. General Richardson stayed as commander of TRADOC, and he,
of course, had told me to come back with a fix. In the fall of 1985 at the TRADOC
commanders conference, I briefed the engineers in AirLand Battle, a briefing I had taken to
all the four stars. Then I began briefing the EForce concept to General RisCassi and then on
up to General Richardson and TRADOC, specifically the remaining piece--engineers in the
mech and armored divisions, the division engineer organization of three battalions, three line
companies each. This was a revolutionary concept, in some aspects, of how we should do
things.
It was really evolutionary. It's only revolutionary because some people seem to think you can
get by with only the single divisional engineer battalion in a division. However, we know
from the history of World War II that throughout the European campaigns, Corps engineer
battalions were attached and stayed with divisions throughout the fight. A post-World War II
study group looked at that experience and said, "We ought to put more engineers into the
division." Over the years that idea has just been kept away. So, it's only revolutionary if you
think that one battalion is all the heavy division needs.
It's really evolutionary when you see that what we're trying to do is take the divisional
engineer battalion and the Corps engineer battalion that's typically, normally, almost always
OPCON [operational control] or attached to that division--like currently in Germany, just
take those assets and reorganize them so they really can do the job of that maneuver
commander in the time frame that he wants it. So, we took that sort of a bastardized
organization, what I call ad hoc, and all the ad hoc arrangements we engineers had to put
together to try to make our World War II system work for the maneuver commander, and
tried to bring it to a new organization that was tailored to the demands of the AirLand
battlefield and the demands of that maneuver commander who's got the problem of
synchronizing all of his combat power. From that standpoint it's evolutionary because we
don't require more spaces and we use the same equipment, although we want modern
equipment to get into today's age. It really puts the right kind of command and control in an
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