________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
We showed that EForce at the National Training Center worked. We showed that EForce
worked on the REFORGER FTX battlefield. We did analytics. We did everything possible,
and the briefings indicated that it really met their challenge as to every facet.
We did all the numbers on force structure that showed that we had it right and within space
resources. We did all the equipment numbers, and we would be short something like, for the
whole Army force, six or seven M88s, nothing else.
So, to answer your question, I don't know why those three artillerymen didn't understand
how the engineer fit the battle in that manner, integrated into the combined arms team, and
that was the way it should be. Armor and infantry maneuver commanders agreed.
Well, I think that wrapped up EForce, for the most part, but it prompts me to think of one
other thing that we did in my year as DCSENGR. There always seemed to be a little bit of
7th Engineer Brigade versus 130th Engineer Brigade kind of differences. They did not
always agree on things.
Clair Gill and Jay Braden were the commanders. I thought we'd worked all that out, and I
think they were fairly successful, but not totally. Jay had been the deputy in VII Corps--the
7th Engineer Brigade. Then he went to the 130th Engineer Brigade, so I would have thought
those things would be worked out.
One of the things we did at that time was get the senior engineer colonels together. I'm
talking about the three brigade commanders and the three Corps command DEHs, who along
with the DCSENGR and the assistant DCSENGR would be sort of a board of directors kind
of thing for engineers, as I saw it.
Even though they didn't work for me, we would work together and talk engineer issues and
problems. One of the key aspects was trying to work a personnel system so that we had a way
of progressing to put the right people in to be battalion S3s and execs. Majors getting that
experience was crucial to their development in the great scheme of things as it was coming
out.
I thought that the "engineer board of directors" was rather successful and enjoyable. We got
together quarterly, and we would include, when he was in town, the 412th Engineer
Command commander too.
One other item that came up, that we haven't talked about yet, had to do with the soldiers'
quality of life. It was something that we initiated when I was DCSENGR, and I followed it
later as Chief of Staff, and eventually we carried the day. It had to do with furniture.
The DCSENGR had the responsibility--first through ISAE, now in DCSENGR--for the
furniture program in Europe. It was really managed in the commands, V Corps, VII Corps,
and throughout where they maintained the warehouses that had the furniture in it to go into
soldiers' quarters.
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