________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
that's the way you're going to do it in wartime. We need to try to put all those things into the
context of how it's going to be on the battlefield, and you're not just trying to make do with
the combination you're given. Now, we are always going to make do with the combination
we're given, even on the battlefield. If we can define the battlefield and define the force the
way we want it, we're not going to put that combat heavy battalion, like at Fort Carson, with
the 4th Division and let that be the expected combat support relationship. That combat heavy
battalion in time of war goes somewhere else and is not attached to the 4th Division. There's
a Corps battalion that's going to be supporting that division. The engineer may go to Europe
and may be in a Corps battalion there, and because of the general defense plan, maybe
understand a little bit better combat relationships.
The point I was getting to was that when you get a bunch of engineers with six or seven years
of experience in maybe two assignments, you really can have different views of battlefield
missions and what engineers do. Even within the division experience category, one might
have light division experience and another might have heavy division experience, which
causes different views. So, from the terms of what we're talking about--the heavy NATO
battlefield and the division and the way guys like General Saint, commanding general of III
Corps, thinks today with his shoot, move, and communicate, let's move out, shock action,
audacity, move, synchronize combat power--you don't have time to sit back and do an
engineer estimate. I mean, you're talking about frag orders, action, rapid change, violence--
so we have to put things in that kind of context. So, part of our problem, then, is this inability
of engineers to focus often until very late in a career, once they have had a bunch of those
experiences.
As I mentioned early on, I've had those experiences--have been in armored division, very
formative years; been in airborne division; been in a Corps engineer battalion; been with a
combat heavy engineer battalion. So, my perspective is a lot broader, but it takes a lot of
years to get that breadth of perspective. The people we have working down teaching and
doing things at captain and major level do not have that breadth. So, our problem is that we
have to look beyond the boundary of our own experience and put things in the terms of
what's being described by the Combined Arms Center and by thinkers like Vuono, RisCassi,
Saint, Burba, and Franks on how we're going to operate on that battlefield. If people don't
have that ability to think that way, or are chained to an old doctrinal manual just to be
modified and make do, then it's difficult.
So, back to your original question, one of the things we've tried to do is bring our engineer
thinking to their maneuver level. Back to a point I made earlier, my focus here has been
warfighting in terms of the maneuver commander on his battlefield, being responsive to him,
for his needs that he defines. Now, I can help him define those needs, but I don't say, "This is
what I'm going to give you and that's all you get." I say, "What do you need, and let's figure
out what we can do to make your battle team more effective."
If we then unchain ourselves from "all we've got is this, and this is the way we've always
done it" and cross that boundary--I call it "looking beyond the discontinuity," the
"discontinuity" being our thinking versus theirs--get into their thinking, put it in that
framework, and then describing those terms, then we can do it. So, I think we really have
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