Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
with approvals only for certain exceptions. Well, that sort of kills any thought of having a
logical, appropriate capital investment program.
Nevertheless, the fact is that industry and others set aside so much for capital investment for
the future and so much for current operations as a certain basis of understanding, and the
board of directors and chief executives are the ones who participate in establishing those
levels and the trade-offs between them, as opposed to the way we do it.
For example, Op Tempo for training is established as a budget entity. Op Tempo means so
many flying hours per year and so many tank hours per year. That's an operating kind of
function--training--and very important in the Army, no doubt about it.
Then when the division commander comes in and says, "I can't achieve that training tempo
unless I buy more tread for my tanks because I'm wearing them out," then that would get
funded. That would then pressure against the other accounts, either capital investment or
within the OMA budget, and would come against the facility counts.
So, what I found in Europe, then, was not only the problem of establishing the appropriate
level of capital investment but, as I was managing the operating programs for facilities and
housing in Europe, I would want some bucks to finish fixing up some housing, I would be
competing against Op Tempo. Op Tempo was key to aggressive maneuver commanders who
really wanted to get out and train. I say again, that was our business in USAREUR, that was
important. That kept people off the streets; that kept us ready to go.
Op Tempo could eat stuff up. It was hard for commanders to compete against Op Tempo for
bucks for the other things they were responsible for, and that is taking care of the troops and
barracks and so forth.
Q:
Well, you mentioned this a couple of times, and maybe you could talk a little about this--the
whole quality of life issue at USAREUR. I note that USAREUR since the early '80s had
been making a real push to improve barracks and family housing and to do things to make
life better for soldiers over there, after a long period of neglect of facilities. Was that program
continued? Had it achieved a lot of success? You've already indicated it looked like it might
lose priority in the budget crunch.
A:
No, it had. There was a great deal of change, a great deal of improvement from my time in
'79 because the dollars had been there overall, with the rising defense budgets in the Reagan
administration, and I think that money had been used wisely and across the board.
At the same time, if you wanted to measure it as General Otis and Scott Smith had laid out
the programs, on how much was done and how much was remaining to be done, you found
that there were still tanks being maintained in the mud, and still troops living in barracks that
still had to be renovated to a better standard. So, a lot had been done; there remained lots to
be done. I think it was obvious that the money was running out faster than it was going to be
done.
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