Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
centralized major Army command. TRADOC, with its subordinate integrating centers, does a
lot of things in integration and is much more centrally controlled, although they want me to
make it happen in my particular arena.
USACE is much more decentralized. I probably had much more individual authority as a
division engineer than I do as a commandant, although I can write doctrine that is Army
doctrine as a commandant. I'm not sure I could do that in USACE. I have to sell programs to
a lot more layers here in TRADOC than I did in USACE. I have my hands in many more
different functional arenas here than I did in USACE. That is, doctrine is one arena, force
structure is one arena, materiel modernization is a very difficult arena involving the whole
Army Materiel Command and the Army Staff in the Pentagon. Then training is a whole
different arena, from officer development here at Fort Belvoir to soldier development at Fort
Leonard Wood and unit training everywhere. Personnel policies involve all the engineer
force worldwide. So, I have many more different actors in all of those functional arenas than
I did in my last position as the Ohio River Division Engineer. I guess that's the basic
contrast.
Again I would just say, though, that both have been very challenging and both very
rewarding from the standpoint of satisfaction in knowing that the responsibilities there in the
Ohio River Division and here at the Engineer School have each been an opportunity to create
a vision of what should be to make things better and an opportunity to have people and the
wherewithal and the resources to make that happen.
Q:
Both great challenges. There seems to be a much greater challenge here and a much more
significant outcome.
A:
I think so, from the standpoint of "proponency" of the total engineer force. You're talking
about national security and the engineer force part of the overall team--I think that's right.
We're talking about professional development of the entire future of the engineer officer
Corps plus the noncommissioned officer Corps. So, I think that's right. I'm sure you'd have
difficulty explaining that to somebody like Senator Byrd when the Tug Fork project wasn't
proceeding on schedule.
Q:
Just going to a different arena of combat, right? [Laughter]
A:
Well, at least in some respects.
Q:
Leave that behind.
A:
As I said from the outset, I really didn't understand initially the full scope of the
responsibilities here at the Engineer School. It's much broader and much more encompassing
of the total than I ever expected. I think many people don't understand that because we have
a serving Chief of Engineers. Many people think he has all these responsibilities when, in
fact, for a lot of these things, the arena is the TRADOC arena. We play here; he can't affect
them like I can. He can support things when they get to the Department of the Army or he
can dash them when they get to the Department of the Army. He can influence them, but a lot
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