________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
and there because nobody really was sure, now at least there was established a way of
moving it.
The obstacle part, though, was it's one thing when the Chief of Staff of the Army--
Wickham, in the case of the 7th Light Infantry Division--puts everything behind it and says,
"We're going to reorganize." Then all systems convert, and they document, and they send
people in there, personnel systems, logistics systems. All the tapes that you requisition
against, all the codes, all that took place so they could have a light division. That didn't take
place for EForce. We couldn't do that. We're talking about an organization that didn't really
exist.
So, we went about to do that. Meantime, there were some other structural changes in Europe,
starting the drawdown of the Pershing missiles. General Saint approved keeping certain
spaces allocations from that to take care of the EForce numbers. By this time, as an
outgrowth of REFORGER '77, the Corps engineer battalions had been mechanized. We had
also moved from staffing level two to staffing level one, and so they were more robust at the
Corps battalions and they could better interchange with divisional battalions.
So, we took it as an opportunity and said, "Well, we're going to drive on, and for future
REFORGERs, engineers are going to be in EForce configuration."
Meanwhile, then, General Reno left and General Schroeder came in as commandant of the
Engineer School. It was too late to do the test during the REFORGER in the fall of '88.
General Woodmansee commanded the V Corps. Jay Braden commanded the 130th Brigade
in V Corps. Colonel Clair Gill arrived to command 7th Engineer Brigade in VII Corps
commanded by Lieutenant General Ron Watts.
Once again, VII Corps ad hocked it as best they could and put battalions together. We didn't
have the colonels to be the division brigade commander, but VII Corps still worked it and
came up with solid lessons learned that EForce was the kind of organization needed.
Up in the 130th Brigade they were not quite so precise and results weren't so clear.
Meanwhile, then, we continued to push. General Saint, with a message to General Vuono,
indicated he wanted to try to get EForce in and said, "We want to organize and implement
the EForce organization so we can do General Thurman's 7th Light Infantry Division test of
the concept during REFORGER '89."
Now, to do that we needed to reorganize about January the year before so we could get
people to put forward, and we could requisition a colonel and work in the personnel and
logistics systems. We took to heart what General Thurman had said. An important part of
that is documentation. You've got to get your computer tapes with all the right numbers and
this and that, the equipment and people all in it, and bring it back.
Well, we reached an impasse in DCSOPS, and General [Wilson A.] Shoffner was an obstacle
this time. We worked toward getting approval to document, and we were about to miss the
window. We had to have a documented organization to requisition. "What's wrong?" we
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