________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
finally ready to send it to the Department of the Army who sends it back to TRADOC saying,
"Not quite right," and yet we're staffed for doing it just one time.
Q:
It's just a bunch of paper shuffling after a while.
A:
We've got to find a way to coalesce the people, decide what it should be, and write it for us,
CAC, and TRADOC all at once with a little fine tuning later on.
Q:
That's where a lot of the wasted man-hours are then. That's familiar; we go through that
exercise. Do you see that the work you've done with the combined arms commanders is
going to have a beneficial effect on this kind of thing?
A:
A beneficial effect to the engineer force, or beneficial effect to staffing?
Q:
To solve such a problem like this because really it does affect their mission.
A:
No, I don't think so because we all compete for school staffing.
Q:
No, I was looking at it in terms of the maneuver commanders' interests, trying to say that
these are things that they need and the perception that can they bring any influence to bear as
a result of the whole mission area work you've done?
A:
Well, I think they're very supportive. In open forums they stand up and say we need EForce.
General Tait at the Armor School does that. General Burba, the Infantry School commandant,
has said that. He said, "The thing I worry about most is my combat engineer support." When
you come down to combat development staffing, that's a level that's below their ability to
have a view. They probably figure it's going to come out of their hide and not the rest. They
have been supportive, and General Tait's included us in his mission areas and wants to
jointly write things up. We still have to take the lead, and we've got to write the things and
take the things to them, but they'll support it when we do that. Our staffing problem is that
it's new, innovative work over and above trying to keep the mill going and all the routine
things too. So, that kind of creative work takes more resources. So, my problem has been to
find a way to do that. We've done the work, but our combat developments people are
working long hours: 12, 14, 16, 17 hours a day.
Q:
Will the relocation provide any relief or solution by combination of what's here with Fort
Leonard Wood?
A:
It's hard to say. From the first standpoint, we see only 10 percent of our people are going to
move, civilianwise. Now, we're talking faces, of course. We should accrue the same spaces.
So, we're obviously going to lose some institutional knowledge and have some transition
problems. Already people are leaving us. See, it's a year away and already people are starting
to go elsewhere because they don't want to move and because of job security; they want to
make the move when they can.
At the same time, in the ones we are hiring out at Fort Leonard Wood, we're getting some
very good people. I think the number is something like this: We wanted to hire 17 interns, we
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