Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
Q:
Yes.
A:
We spent an exorbitant amount of time addressing all those ideas, and there's an awful lot of
wheel spinning. For some reason, Defense puts people in positions of responsibility with a
bean-counter mentality whose sole justification seems to be to achieve some level of cut.
"Goodness" is then defined, you know, as to whether you achieve the cut, rather than
whether you've done the job that needs to be done for the Army.
Why people that have that outlook get picked to go into those jobs, I don't know. Certainly
we teach in all of our schools that mission accomplishment is paramount, doing the Army's
job. That really gets lost when people keep quoting, "We're doing this to meet the principles
of Vanguard."
The principles of Vanguard are fewer field operating agencies. Yet, you could have
something like a subordinate operational activity; that's all right. Doesn't that sound like a
field operating agency?
Q:
Yes.
A:
Only by another name?
Q:
Yes.
A:
Sure it does. So, I don't know. The original mark on the wall becomes the driver, and we
have folks who see their measure of success as to whether they can achieve that number,
irrespective of mission accomplishment or effectiveness, and that's absolutely wrong.
We ought to find out how to effectively accomplish the mission with fewer resources, or with
the right number of resources, or articulate the cause if it's a threshold on a certain kind of
resource, like AMHA [Army Management Headquarters Account] spaces, to get it right.
Part of the Vanguard problem is that it was good, in years past, to have subordinate activities
do these kinds of jobs rather than headquarters. Now, "good" has been redefined. It's no
longer good to have a field operating agency. It's better to have the function at the
headquarters, but you can't have more spaces at headquarters--that is against another
principle, which was the original problem that caused the field operating agencies to be
established to meet the original "goodness." So--it's bonkers.
Q:
How do you feel at this point, now that you're about two weeks away from retirement?
A:
Oh, I feel that I'd rather go back, start my career all over again, and do it all over.
Q:
Sure.
A:
I mean, if you asked me again, I might tell you the same thing. I feel pretty good. I've had 34
years, 5 months of great service, and I've enjoyed all of it--some days more than others.
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