Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
Second, you're going to work for good people here. So, when you come and you're going to
be working with and for the Paul Chinens, the Ted Vander Els, the John Fesmires, the Paul
DeVrieses, the Bob Whitleys, the John Schauffleburgers, the Russ Fuhrmans, the Tom
Farewells, the Rick Capkas, the Al Carrolls, guys who are obviously right at the head of their
peers in their respective year groups, then I think that we're getting good publicity. At the
same time, I'm not sending a list to Engineer Branch saying, "I need your 40 best majors"--
but I'd sure like to have 25 of them.
Q:
It takes a long time to unmake those kinds of things, those myths or those things that used to
be.
A:
It does. That's why I caveated my response. I think we've turned the corner, but I know
somebody out there still thinks that way. It's very difficult to communicate to the whole
force. Just communicating to battalion commanders is difficult. I came here with the thought
that we've got to do better as proponent communicating to battalions about our work. We
sent messages to the field, messages to every active battalion commander, every total force
engineer battalion commander. Yet, it's amazing to hear somebody stand up and say, "How
come you never do this?" when I know it was the subject of a message six months before,
fully laid out. We received responses from some people for communicating that, yet here are
two or three people who never even heard of it. Because we turn over so rapidly in the field,
we don't retain an institutional base of knowledge out in the units, and the myths are very
difficult to turn around, even with facts.
Q:
I guess a lot of it may be because of the division between the school and the Chief of
Engineers' office. Would the infantry and armor and field artillery be much stronger in that
area?
A:
I don't know if I necessarily agree with that. I guess there's potential, but we should be better
because we have at least two spokesmen now on the circuit talking, the Chief of Engineers
and me when I go out as proponent. General Heiberg and I early on decided we would like to
speak with one voice and recognized keeping each other informed was an important part of
that. When he goes on trips, he has his people call down here and say, "What's the latest?" or
"I'm going over there; any subjects I should know about?" We know when he's going. We
try to prepare him with some papers, usually not a lot. We've both been in our positions long
enough now to have a real feel for what each knows and so forth. If he gets a question thrown
at him, he'll say, "I'll get you an answer." He comes back and bounces it to the Office of the
ACE for an answer, copy to us so we can work with the ACE to get the answer. We should
be more effective in communicating as long as we stay in one voice, and I think we've done
that pretty fairly.
Q:
To what degree did your position involve direct contact with the civilian community and
what were the nature of those contacts?
A:
You're talking about the surrounding civilian community from Fort Belvoir?
Q:
I assume that's what this is, yes.
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