________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
out. We would also then have a standoff separation of the building from the fence,
terroristwise. We'd also have a separation of our own parking lot from the rest. People
wouldn't have to cross it.
Acquisition by the German government of the properties and solving those issues just went
awfully slowly. Again, remember Dr. Korte, who found a new obstacle every time he solved
the old one. So, that acquisition was going torturously slow.
Later, then, when General Saint came in and the appearance of who should go there was
changed, we decided not to proceed further. We dropped it.
Q:
You've been involved in the NATO infrastructure program. That was a slow way to get
things built, for the most part, wasn't it? Very deliberative. It took a long time. One in which
DCSENGR played a pretty key role, I think, in terms of programming.
A:
Yes. The DCSENGR was the point of contact with the infrastructure program. I should
mention that we did have a higher U.S. headquarters there, and that was EUCOM, located at
Stuttgart, Patch Barracks. Many things were service oriented, so we went directly to the
Army Staff for things that were service oriented.
Nevertheless, for our Army construction programs, we went through the EUCOM engineer
and up to General Galvin. As the CINCUSAREUR, he would add his comments, and part of
his annual statement to the Congress would include those aspects of it.
In the NATO infrastructure program, EUCOM had an even more direct role because they
were the theater command who determined the theater position on issues. So, EUCOM
would take the Navy, Europe; the Air Force, Europe; and the Army, Europe, positions and
put them all together. So, our channel on NATO infrastructure projects was through
EUCOM.
It was also through AFCENT because the NATO military tactical commander had to
comment. Then it went to Brussels and went through the NATO potpourri of actions carried
on by the U.S. mission representative.
So, the DCSENGR put together the USAREUR infrastructure program. We had a NATO
Infrastructure Branch, and Fred Kishaba was still there, just like he'd been in '79 when he'd
worked for me.
It did take a long time because you had to get all those approvals.
Q:
I don't have a good sense of this. The Vilseck restationing, was that happening?
A:
The Vilseck restationing was ongoing when I arrived and continued. During our annual
construction program, each year while I was there, we had some more facilities to add to
Vilseck. It had started. It was nice for me to see, having, as I mentioned earlier, been
involved in 1978 and '79 in DCSENGR with the master restationing plan in Europe and
having come back to the ACE's office and interacted with the Department of Defense,
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