________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
A:
EForce fixes a lot of things. It's going to put the right kind of stuff in the division. It's going
to allow us to write doctrine now with the kind of association to really follow METTT
[mission, enemy, terrain, troops and time available] without all the "ad hocricies" that are
required under current doctrine to make it work. We're going to solve the maintenance and
the supply problems that have always plagued us. We're going to solve the communications
problems because no longer are you going to have 70 kilometers between engineer company
and battalion; we're going to shorten those distances. We need less communications
equipment. All of that gets solved.
In addition, back to your question, we're going to have more engineers, now, who grow up in
divisions because we'll find that much of our active force will be in divisions or combat
heavy battalions and most of the Corps battalions are going to be in the reserve components,
which, I say, is exactly the way it should be. Now the reserve components have four heavy
divisions, too; they'll still have engineers. The reserve component engineers, Corps
battalions, with their limited training time do not have to try to be up close and personal with
heavy divisions because, in fact, they will seldom be asked to go up in the forward brigade
area. They don't have time to really learn close combat support of the heavy divisions, as we
learned last year in our REFORGER training exercise.
Reserve engineer units will be able to focus their mission-essential task list back of the
brigade's rear boundary. Those folks in the EForce divisional battalions can focus on the
forward area for their training because, then, most of the Corps battalions are reserve. More
of the active force will be in divisions or the combat heavy battalions. Now, we'll still have
some Corps battalions and we'll still have the light engineer battalions, but we'll have double
the number of people going through divisions with EForce than we had before.
We're also going to have a colonel in that division commanding the division engineer
element. General Vuono said he badly wants that in the division, the colonel. We're going to
have three engineer battalion commanders, lieutenant colonels, commanding in that division.
So, we're going to have more people with the mindset that I think is so valuable--that is,
how you think, how you operate on the move in that AirLand Battle situation. I think E
Force itself corrects the problem, and so I don't think it will change career patterns. I think
the guy will still have about the same amount of time with troops and time in an engineer
district or a DEH or on a staff or at school. However, because of EForce, more of that time
with troops will be in a division, more than it was before. Since we're doing that, then we
can make sure more of the combat heavy folks have an opportunity to be in a division and
vice versa.
Q:
Now, every time you talk about the regiment, I always come back to the old engineers I've
interviewed and asked them what happened in 1940, 1941, when General Leslie McNair
decided that they didn't need that engineer regiment in there, they just needed the battalion.
And, of course, their answer to it was, "Flexibility, hell! There was no flexibility. You still
had all this stuff attached to you anyway. You just didn't command it really." They
universally said it was to prevent there being an engineer colonel in that division who could
become the brigade commander. It goes back to a jealousy factor. Every one of them said the
same thing, "It never worked, could never work, and was recommended against."
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