Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
Q:
In the meantime, you lose a two-star engineer once you're out there so there is no net gain.
A:
That's right. One of three positions goes away. We'll end up with one major general and one
brigadier general of engineers. We will then, in fact, have an assistant commandant who will
then be involved in the combat development side of the house and the training side of the
house and all the rest. That brigadier will be able to speak for the commandant and represent
the views of the proponent. That's where it really counts. We can send our current colonel
assistant commandant down to talk to the Chief of Engineers, and he's as good as anybody
else, fully acceptable. In some of those other arenas out there at meetings, you don't even get
a seat at the table unless you're a general officer. The colonel finds himself in the back row
and less effective.
Q:
That's another positive thing to be gained from the relocation to Fort Leonard Wood, then, a
little more subtle, not as much up front as the others.
A:
Yes.
Q:
What is the one area in which you did not make the progress you had hoped, and what do you
attribute that to?
A:
Well, I guess the most frustrating thing I've fought since I've been here is staffing for combat
developments most specifically. We rank ninth in staffing in combat developments in
TRADOC. We rank second, fourth, or fifth in all the items that you count, like numbers of
systems, number of SRCs or type units, numbers of sets, kits, and outfits we manage. I look
with a little envy at Knox who worries about armor and Cav, tanks and Cav vehicles, and
about the same number of officers in the active force but many more folks in the Department
of Combat Developments.
The job at Knox, from the standpoint of the Department of Combat Developments, has got to
be more simple than somebody who's here working in the multiple mission areas where we
are addressing countermobility, mobility, survivability, topography, and sustainment
engineering, each with different sets of systems and tools. The engineer carries a bunch of
different tools in today's battlefield so that others don't have to carry them. I mean, with the
tankers we bring in the CEV, the AVLB, the digger--the M9 ACE or the D7--and we need
a breacher. We have all the different implements so they can have that single focus on direct
fire kill. Artillery's got the indirect fire mission. So, we sit out there with an M60 AVLB
and an M60 CEV trying to support a battalion task force that is equipped with M1 tanks
and the M2 Bradley with the infantry component. That's four systems, three branches;
we've got two of the systems. The other two are modernized.
So, we're playing catch-up across a lot more different kinds of systems, a lot more different
kinds of units, more different sets, kits, and outfits than anybody else, and yet we're ninth in
combat developments staffing. So, I mean, it's just vexing to me. Not only that, engineering
modeling lags everybody else's because modelers look at total force, which replicates armor,
infantry, aviation, and so we also have to play catch-up, yet we only rate ninth in staffing vis-
-vis all the rest of them. What we're talking about are turning out the documents, the
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