________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
We'd just redone the light division engineers as part of the new light division. The airborne
engineer battalion and air assault engineer battalion had just been redone. We were in the
midst of doing the topo battalion over with an all-new topo concept. So, the only one we
hadn't touched was the heavy division engineer battalion.
So, I put a team together and started working with Colonel Ted Vander Els, the Combat
Developments Chief, and Majors Rick Capka and Houng Soo. I was intimately down with
them working the details, trying to design how it really should be. So, we developed a new
organizational model for engineers in the heavy division. What we were trying to do was
provide the right kind of command and control and the right kind of force where the work
gets done at the brigade level.
The other thing that had happened at that time was that NTC was showing that the engineers
were not doing the job during exercises at the NTC. They had to be augmented. They were
failing. They even had armor command sergeant majors, quote, "in charge of" fleets of
bulldozers to get the work done, rather than the engineer company and the engineer platoon.
What was identified, in spades, was that the engineer platoon was insufficient to support the
maneuver task force, and the engineer company was insufficient to support the maneuver
brigade.
Now, I'd known that all along because I'd been out there in the field as a platoon leader in
the 23d Engineers, 3d Armored Division, years ago and then as commander of the 7th
Engineer Brigade and Corps engineer in VII Corps, Germany.
We put all that together, and then, like everything, we had to sell the product. So, we started
developing the briefing that would articulate the need and market it. Then we had to call the
new structure something.
So, that's when I came up with EForce, engineer force because we were doing the whole
force. EForce really wasn't just the heavy division. It's come to be thought of as just that
one increment remaining. In fact, my responsibility to Vuono and Richardson was to do the
whole engineer force to fight the whole engineer battle. So, we had done all of it.
Now, only this piece hadn't been wrapped up, the heavy division. Over time, that got to be
known as EForce, and you'll see that again and again.
Q:
You were referring to the whole thing?
A:
Well, initially, I was referring to the whole thing.
Q:
Yes.
A:
My briefing usually says, "Here's where we are. Now, let me return to what's left--the heavy
division." You take the briefing, which is, you know, an hour long. Well, there's 10 minutes
on the problem and the whole, and then the next 50 minutes deal with just the heavy division
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