Combat Studies Institute Press

US Army Combined Arms Center

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027

Dr. Harold E. Raugh, Jr.

Command Historian, V Corps

Editor

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

V Corps in Bosnia-Herzegovina

1995-1996

An Oral History
Cover Photo

“In 1995, V Corps’ 1st Armored Division spearheaded US Army participation in 

the multinational Implementation Force in Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. This 

was NATO’s first out-of-sector deployment with a mission of implementing the 

Dayton Peace Accords that ended the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina. After winter 

weather and flooding hindered construction, the US Army built a 2,113-feet long 

bridge, “the largest pontoon bridge [built] since World War II.” In this photo, a 1st 

Armored Division convoy crosses the Sava River on this bridge into

Bosnia-Herzegovina on 31 December 1995.”
Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

V Corps in Bosnia-Herzegovina

1995-1996

An Oral History

Combat Studies Institute Press

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027

Interviews by

Major Nels Dolan

Lieutenant Colonel David Fastabend

Major Edward Gaumer

Dr. Charles E. Kirkpatrick

Lieutenant Colonel Walter E. Kretchik

Dr. Janet McDonnell

Major Richard Thurston

Dr. Harold E. Raugh, Jr.

Command Historian, V Corps

Editor
CSI Press Publications covers a variety of military topics. The views 

expressed in this CSI Press Publication are those of the author(s) and 

not necessarily those of the Department of the Army or the Department 

of Defense. 

The seal of the combat studies institute authenticates this document as an official 

publication of the CSI. It is prohibited to use CSI’s official seal on any republication 

of this material without the written permission of the director of CSI. 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

V Corps in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1995-1996 : an oral history / Harold E. Raugh, 

Jr., editor ; interviews by Nels Dolan ... (et al.).

 p. cm.

 At head of title: Operation Joint Endeavor

 ISBN 978-0-9841901-2-6

1. Yugoslav War, 1991-1995--Bosnia and Hercegovina. 2. Yugoslav War, 

1991-1995--Personal narratives, American. 3. Operation Joint Endeavor, 1995-

1996. 4. United States. Army. Corps, 5th--Biography. 5. United States. Army--

Officers--Interviews. 6. Soldiers--United States--Interviews. 7. Yugoslav War, 

1991-1995--Regimental histories--United States. 8. Military planning--United 

States--History--20th century. 9. Military planning--Bosnia and Hercegovina--

History--20th century. 10. Oral histories. I. Raugh, Harold E. II. Dolan, Nels. 

III. Title: Operation Joint Endeavor. 

 DR1313.3.V23 2009

 949.703--dc22

 2010010233

First printing: June 2010
Contents

Introduction

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR in the Balkans: The Role of V Corps Staff 

Planning and Task Force Victory, 1995-1996, by Dr. Harold E. Raugh, Jr..........1

Interviews

Major General Walter H. Yates, Deputy Commander, USAREUR (Forward); 

Commanding General, Task Force Victory; and Deputy Commanding General, 

V Corps................................................................................................................27

Major General William L. Nash, Commanding General, 1st Armored Division 

and Commanding General, Task Force Eagle (26 May 1996)........................51

Major General William L. Nash, Commanding General, 1st Armored Division 

and Commanding General, Task Force Eagle (16 May 1997).......................69

Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Milford, Assistant Chief of Staff, G1, Task Force 

Victory.....................................................................................................89

Lieutenant Colonel David K. Swindell, Acting Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, Task 

Force Victory..............................................................................................99

Major John Lucynski, Operations Officer, Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, Task 

Force Victory............................................................................................119

Major Athondo Mardee Taylor, Deputy G3/Training Officer, Task Force 

Victory.................................................................................................129

Colonel James Clifford, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, G1, V Corps...........133

Colonel Jeffrey N. Christianson, Adjutant General, V Corps and CW4 Patrick 

McElroy, Chief, Personnel Actions Division, AG, V Corps.........................139

Major Kenneth O. McCreedy, Chief, Plans and Exercises, Assistant Chief of 

Staff, G2, V Corps.......................................................................................149

Lieutenant Colonel Albert Bryant, Jr., Chief, Plans, Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, 

V Corps....................................................................................................161

Lieutenant Colonel Peter Schifferle, Chief, War Plans, Assistant Chief of Staff, 

G3, V Corps.............................................................................................177

iii
Lieutenant Colonel Manuel J.F. Hernandez, Chief, Current Operations, Assistant 

Chief of Staff, G3, V Corps..............................................................................191

Lieutenant Colonel James Terrell, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, G4, 

V Corps................................................................................................................203

Lieutenant Colonel Steven P. Goligowski, Chief, Plans and Operations, Assistant 

Chief of Staff, G4, V Corps..............................................................................225

Lieutenant Colonel John A. Ylinen, Chief, Automation, Assistant Chief of Staff, 

G6, V Corps; Assistant Chief of Staff, Resource Management, V Corps...........245

 

Colonel Floyd C. Hood, Assistant Chief of Staff, Resource Management, 

V Corps..................................................................................................253

 

Major Ronald Miller, Chief, International and Operational Law, Office of the 

Staff Judge Advocate, V Corps.......................................................................261

Appendix A: The Situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, September 1995 

by Lieutenant General John N. Abrams.........................................................273

Appendix B: Operation Joint Endeavor Lessons learned, 2 May 1996 

by Lieutenant General John N. Abrams.........................................................277

Glossary of Abbreviations and Acronyms.....................................................287

About the Author..................................................................................293

iv
1

INTRODUCTION 

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR in the Balkans:

The Role of V Corps Staff Planning and Task Force Victory, 

1995-1996

By Harold E. Raugh, Jr.

Introduction

The Dayton Peace Accords, signed on 14 December 1995, formally ended the 

ethnic and religious conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina and established a framework 

for full implementation of the provisions of the peace settlement.1

 The following 

day, the UNSC (United Nations Security Council) adopted UNSC Resolution 

1031, which authorized the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) “to 

establish a multinational IFOR (Implementation Force) under unified command 

and control”2 to help ensure compliance with the provisions of the Dayton Peace 

Accords. This NATO IFOR would operate under the “authority and subject to 

the direction and political control of the NAC (North Atlantic Council) through 

the NATO chain of command.”3

 The deployment of the IFOR, with a one-year 

mandate, was designated OJE (Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR) and marked the 

first major out-of-area peace enforcement operation in the alliance’s half-century 

history. Moreover, this complex and challenging military operation included for 

the first time since World War II, American and Russian soldiers operating as 

allies, a feat unthinkable only six years earlier before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. 

On 5 December 1995, NATO foreign ministers approved military planning for 

IFOR, which called for over 60,000 military personnel to serve in the NATOled IFOR. More than 32 countries, including all NATO countries, thirteen PFP 

(Partnership for Peace) nations, and four other nations agreed to contribute forces 

to IFOR. The United States, United Kingdom, and France provided the largest 

national contingents. All forces served under OPCON (operational control) of 

NATO, with the exception of the Russian contingent. This contingent served 

OPCON directly to the SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander-Europe), which 

was in charge of NATO military forces and also under TACON (Tactical Control of 

the commanding general, US 1st Armored Division.4

 On 20 December 1995, only 

four days after the NAC approved OJE, the IFOR commander assumed military 

authority in Bosnia-Herzegovina from the commander of the UNPROFOR (United 

Nations Protection Force).5

While the approval of IFOR and related military developments and deployments 

took place seemingly very quickly in December 1995, these initiatives were 

crowned with success because, from the US Army perspective, they were the 

culmination of about three years of deliberate planning, thorough preparations, 

and intensive training by USAREUR (US Army, Europe) and its major subordinate 

command, V Corps. V Corps, which had moved its headquarters from Frankfurt 
2

to Heidelberg, Germany, only on 13 January 1995, made significant contributions 

to the command, planning, organization, operations, and accomplishments of this 

team effort. The commanding general of V Corps served as deputy commanding 

general, USAREUR Headquarters (Forward), in charge of the NSE (National 

Support Element) at the ISB (Intermediate Staging Base) at Taszar, Hungary. He was 

responsible for the deployment, sustainment, and later redeployment of US forces 

to and from Bosnia-Herzegovina. The V Corps Headquarters (Main) remained in 

Heidelberg and served as the plans headquarters for the operation. Moreover, based 

on guidance and directives from its higher headquarters (USAREUR), V Corps 

provided the majority of forces for the US national contingent for OJE, centered on 

the 1st AD (Armored Division). The 1st AD provided command and control and 

the nucleus of the multinational Task Force Eagle and it was accountable for peace 

enforcement operations in the American or Multinational Division-North, sector 

of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The V Corps was also responsible for the establishment 

and operations of Task Force Victory under the V Corps deputy commanding 

general and using the V Corps Artillery staff of commanding rear detachments, 

non-deploying units, and executing related missions. 

Historical Background

The Balkans have a turbulent and bloody history of internecine warfare and 

foreign domination. In the wake of the Allied victory in World War I and the 

disintegration of the defeated and increasingly moribund Ottoman Empire, the 

“Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes” was established on 1 December 1918. 

This new political entity contained the formerly independent kingdoms of Serbia 

and Montenegro and substantial parts of the former Austria-Hungary. These lands 

contained a heterogeneous population of multiple ethnic and religious groups, 

making it difficult to establish a common national identity and pursue shared 

national goals.

The country was renamed “Yugoslavia,” literally “the Land of South Slavs,” by 

King Alexander I on 6 January 1929. During World War II, German forces invaded 

Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941 and forced the Yugoslav Army to surrender eleven days 

later. Yugoslavia remained a bitter battleground throughout the war as Westernsupported royalist guerrilla forces [popularly known as the “Chetniks”] battled 

Communist partisans [under Josip Broz Tito] and both groups initially fought the 

Nazi occupiers and their Croatian separatist proxies. The Chetniks eventually 

considered the disproportionately high German retribution against primarily Serb 

civilians too high a price to pay and they ended their combat operations against 

the Germans. 

The United States then shifted its support to the Communists, who were able to 

drive the Axis forces out of Serbia in 1944 and from the rest of Yugoslavia in early 
3

1945. The approaching Soviet Army units assisted in liberating Belgrade but did 

not occupy the country after the end of hostilities. Tito, considered a national hero, 

became prime minister of the post-war independent communist state, renamed 

the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia on 31 January 1946. Under Tito, 

Yugoslavia distanced itself from the Soviet Union and established a type of nonaligned socialism. The country was renamed the Socialist Federal Republic of 

Yugoslavia and Tito was declared President for Life on 7 April 1963. 

The iron fist of Tito, coupled with the international community’s desire to 

maintain a stable and neutral nation in Europe between the opposing Cold War 

powers, suppressed internal dissent and the rumblings of nationalism. However, 

Tito died in 1980 and amid a weakening central government and Communist Party 

as well as economic crises, ethnic tensions resurfaced. The IMF (International 

Monetary Fund) was called in to remediate the huge national debt. As part of 

the IMF’s drastic program to restructure the anachronistic socialist economic 

system, numerous businesses were declared bankrupt and hundreds of thousands 

of workers lost their jobs. This period of economic and social calamity coincided 

with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. 

Elections were held in the republics of Yugoslavia in early 1990 with Slovenian 

and Croatian voters wanting more autonomy and those in Serbia and Montenegro 

favoring national unity. Various ethnic groups, particularly Serbs in Croatia who 

did not want to be a minority in a sovereign Croatia, began a campaign of sporadic 

civil disobedience that included blocking roads and mass demonstrations. The 

Yugoslav People’s Army, dominated by senior officers of Serbian ethnicity, tried 

to appear neutral but tacitly supported Serbs and became increasingly involved 

in politics. Anticipating potential violence, Slovenia, and then Croatia, began 

covertly importing weapons.

The point of no return was reached on 25 June 1991 when both Slovenia and 

Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia. Even though the Yugoslav 

People’s Army was ordered to take control of the “international” borders of 

Yugoslavia, little friction resulted until the fall of 1991 when Serbs living in 

Croatia unilaterally established the “Republic of Serbian Krajina” within the 

borders of Croatia. Ethnic cleansing was conducted by Croatian officials and 

those of Serbian Krajina. The city of Vukovar in eastern Croatia was besieged and 

eventually captured by the Yugoslav People’s Army. 

A ceasefire was signed by the Croatian and Yugoslav [Serbian] presidents in 

January 1992, at which time three UNPA(s) (United Nations Protected Areas) 

were established in Croatian territory claimed by the Serbs. UNSC Resolution 

743, adopted on 21 February 1992, established the UN Protection Force to 

provide “safe havens” in the UNPA enclaves.6

 The brutal internecine fighting 
4

that had taken place in Croatia spilled into Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992 and the 

UNPROFOR mandate was expanded to include peacekeeping operations there. 

Six areas, including Sarajevo and Srebrenica, were designated “security zones” 

with UNPROFOR forces being authorized to use force to defend them. 

American led negotiations between the Croats and Bosnian Muslims in 

Washington, DC, resulted in a ceasefire and the formation of the Federation of 

Bosnia and Herzegovina on 18 March 1994. The “Contact Group” consisting of 

the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Russia, was established 

at about the same time to facilitate peacekeeping and peace-building efforts in the 

Balkans. A ceasefire lasted until fighting broke out again in the spring of 1995.

UNPROFOR troops increasingly became pawns between the warring factions 

and ineffective, as shown by the debacle at Srebrenica where the Dutch Battalion of 

UNPROFOR failed to deter the Serb attack on 7 July 1995 or the resultant horrific 

massacre of some 8,000 Bosniaks [Bosnian Muslims].7

 On 20 March 1995, forces 

from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina attacked Bosnian Serb forces in 

the northeastern sector of the country. Croatian military forces launched Operation 

FLASH from 1 to 3 May 1995 to recapture Serb-held areas of Western Slavonia and 

executed Operation STORM from 4 to 7 August 1995, to regain Serb-dominated 

enclaves in central Croatia. Both military operations displaced hundreds of 

thousands of civilians and were considered “ethnic cleansing” by the international 

community. The culmination of many of these events triggered by the Bosnian 

Serb Army bombing of the marketplace in Sarajevo on 28 August 1995 was the 

initiation of Operation DELIBERATE FORCE. This was the sustained NATO 

air offensive augmented by British and French artillery8

 conducted between 30 

August and 20 September 1995 against Bosnian Serb Army forces that threatened 

various UN-designated “safe areas,” including Sarajevo in Bosnia.9 These actions 

and factors and diplomatic pressure combined, forced the warring factions to agree 

to a tenuous ceasefire and meet at the negotiating table in Dayton, Ohio, and the 

eventual signing of the Dayton Peace Accords and establishment of the NATO 

IFOR.

Strategic Shift in Post-Cold War US Army, Europe

The end of the Cold War symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 

1989, ushered in seismic changes in the mission and role of USAREUR. During 

the four-decade Cold War, USAREUR had focused on “deterring aggression and 

defending Western Europe against threats emanating from the Soviet Union and its 

communist allies in Eastern Europe.”10 USAREUR shifted its focus from operations 

based on the NATO GDP (General Defense Plan) and theoretically culminating in 

a titanic armored battle in NATO’s Central Region to a more flexible, “capable 

Corps” concept with greater employment and deployment possibilities.11 The 
5

capable Corps concept stressed “huge areas of operations, long and fast marches, 

maneuver skills, meeting engagements, and massed firepower.”12

This concept was soon tested as USAREUR deployed its VII Corps Headquarters 

and elements of both VII and V Corps [totaling some 26,878 soldiers] to Saudi 

Arabia for Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM in 1990 and 

1991. This was followed by deployments of V Corps units to Kuwait, Turkey, and 

northern Iraq in 1991; to Croatia and Somalia in 1992; to Rwanda in 1993; and to 

Macedonia in 1994.13

The annual REFORGER (Return of Forces to Germany) exercises, conducted 

since 1967 to test the deployment and reinforcement capabilities of CONUS 

(Continental United States)-based units, became anachronistic in the post-Cold 

War era. The REFORGER Enhancement Plan, which combined REFORGER 

89 and 90, restored Corps-versus-Corps training scenarios, although largely in a 

simulation mode, to the overall exercise.14 Corps-level command post exercises 

were conducted in 1991 and 1992. Exercise DRAGON HAMMER, conducted in 

Sardinia in 1992, highlighted USAREUR expectations of conducting future outof-sector deployments.

Planning for Balkan Intervention

By early 1992, the US military leadership in Europe watched with a wary eye, 

the Balkan imbroglio as it spread to neighboring areas and increased in violence, 

concerned about being drawn into the conflagration. Then Lieutenant General 

David M. Maddox, V Corps Commanding General, was also concerned about the 

situation in Eastern and Southern Europe, observing that, “old national, ethnic, and 

religious differences have arisen that precipitate regional fighting.”15 As a result, 

as early as May 1992, the V Corps staff briefed Maddox on the 1941 German 

attack on Yugoslavia, highlighting the opposing forces’ orders of battle, the impact 

of terrain on the operations, logistical support, and the reasons for the Yugoslav 

collapse.16 Also in the spring of 1992, the Corps commander began receiving 

regular briefings on the situation in the former Yugoslavia, a process that continued 

as the conditions in the Balkans further deteriorated.

In July 1992, the USAREUR staff was tasked to determine the requirements to 

secure a land route from the Adriatic Sea to Sarajevo in the event UN peacekeepers 

would need to be rescued from Bosnia. With the assistance of V Corps planners, 

the USAREUR staff estimated it would take a 200,000-soldier force to secure such 

a route with a 30 kilometer buffer zone on each side.17

Beginning in November 1992, the V Corps staff, as part of a EUCOM 

(US European Command) joint task force headquarters, conducted detailed 
6

contingency planning to provide humanitarian supplies to civilians besieged in 

Bosnia-Herzegovina. It also worked on plans relating to the possible evacuation 

of UN troops from Croatia.

Meanwhile, EUCOM was considering NATO OPLAN (Operations Plan) 4228, 

based on AFSOUTH (Allied Forces South Europe) OPLAN 40103, a peace 

implementation plan for Bosnia-Herzegovina. USAREUR designated the V Corps 

staff as the lead Army planners. This planning continued through May 1992 when 

1st AD, which had earlier been designated the American contingent for any UN 

or NATO intervention that would take place, was brought into the process. A 

few months later, NATO planners designated the ACE (Allied Command, Europe), 

ARRC (Allied Rapid Reaction Corps), for service in any Bosnia mission.18 While 

the ARRC staff then took over NATO Balkans planning, the V Corps staff continued 

to conduct operations and logistics planning for US Army units that would be 

assigned to the ARRC. V Corps continued general planning, which included the 

preparation of a US Army force deployment list, through 1993 and 1994. 

In the summer of 1994, AFSOUTH planning efforts focused on a new plan, 

OPLAN 40104, which provided for the extraction of UNPROFOR from BosniaHerzegovina under hostile conditions. While the ARRC was designated the lead 

element for such a possible operation, the main USAREUR units involved in the 

planning process for OPLAN 40104 were V Corps, the 21st TAACOM (Theater 

Army Area Command), and 1st AD.

NATO published its initial version of OPLAN 40104 in January 1995 and the 

following month, on 12 February, USAREUR presented its initial plans for the 

mission’s task organization. This proposed task organization numbered 24,000 

soldiers, a troop level disapproved by EUCOM, which stated that the JCS (Joint 

Chiefs of Staff) had imposed a 13,500-troop limit to the operation. This figure was 

later revised to 14,900 soldiers, the strength 1st AD had used in its planning. 

In March 1995, USAREUR directed its strategic reserve, the airborne task force 

[tailored around 3d Battalion, 325th Infantry] of the SETAF (Southern European 

Task Force), Vicenza, Italy, to begin planning for a possible mission to extract 

UN peacekeepers from various besieged cities in Bosnia-Herzegovina.19 In April, 

USAREUR directed V Corps to conduct an exercise to assist SETAF to prepare for 

their possible extraction operation under OPLAN DARING LION. The SETAFled joint task force [which included V Corps aviation assets and a Corps support 

group] had been dubbed “Task Force Lion.” SETAF held a number of planning 

conferences, staff exercises, and training and rehearsal exercises to develop a plan 

which was facilitated by Exercise Mountain Shield, held at Grafenwoehr Training 

Area from 10 to 25 June 1995. Phases of the exercise, which was designed “to 

facilitate the development and validation of SETAF’s OPLAN Daring Lion,” 

included a two day CPX (Command Post Exercise) during which V Corps served 
7

as the ARRC, with an extensive after action review, a fire coordination exercise, 

and a mission rehearsal exercise.20 Even though a second Exercise Mountain 

Shield was held between 7 and 19 September 1995 at Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels 

to test the advanced plans, military operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina over the 

summer of 1995 relieved the pressure on some of the besieged cities, rendering an 

extraction mission unnecessary. 

Fighting intensified in the former Republic of Yugoslavia during the spring and 

summer of 1995 as shown by the Serb attacks at Srebrenica and other enclaves, 

Croatian military offensives in Western Slavonia and central Croatia, and other 

military operations. As it was becoming obvious that a much larger peacekeeping 

force would need to deploy to Bosnia-Herzegovina to separate the warring factions, 

in July of 1995, USAREUR directed V Corps to develop a campaign plan for the 

deployment of a US Army ground force.

V Corps planning for this new operation was conducted at the same time peace 

negotiations were being conducted and as a result, “there was no specific mission, 

it was not known if the mission would be peacekeeping or peace enforcement, 

it was difficult to know if the force should be heavy or light, the AOR (Area of 

Responsibility) of the US forces was not known, and political sensitivities prevented 

on-the ground reconnaissance.”21 As V Corps planning was being conducted 

ahead of policy decisions being made, the guidance from higher headquarters 

was limited, causing V Corps planners to use their own initiative and experience. 

They conducted the troops-to-task analysis and mission analysis. It was known 

however, that unlike proposed operations in the past, this new Balkan mission 

would have a higher force level, would be of at least six months’ duration, would 

need to be sustained for an extended period, and would involve peace making or 

peace enforcement instead of peacekeeping.22

A small V Corps planning cell began meeting daily in August 1995. Three courses 

of action were developed based upon force levels considered appropriate for the 

impending mission, with a force cap of 25,000 being imposed shortly thereafter 

on the planners. This decision meant that 1st AD would have to be augmented by 

additional forces and the 1st AD staff would have to be increased to effectively 

exercise command and control over the additional forces. After analyzing the force 

structure and determining which US elements could be replaced by allied forces, 

V Corps G3 planners concluded the total force would consist of 31,191 soldiers, 

with the United States providing 19,900 soldiers and allied armies contributing 

11,291 troops. The final force structure for the deploying US unit, Task Force 

Eagle, consisted of:

Headquarters, 1st Armored Division

 Headquarters and Headquarters Company 

 5th Bn (Battalion), 3d Air Defense (Bradley-Avenger)

 501st Military Intelligence Battalion
8

 141st Signal Battalion

1st Brigade

3d Bn, 5th Cavalry (Mechanized Infantry)

 4th Bn, 67th Armor

2d Brigade

 4th Bn, 12th Infantry (Mechanized)

 2d Bn, 68th Armor

4th (Aviation) Brigade

 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry

 2d Bn, 227th Aviation (Attack)

 3d Bn, 227th Aviation (Attack)

 7th Bn, 227th Aviation (Assault Helicopter)

Engineer Brigade

 23d Engineer Battalion

 40th Engineer Battalion

Division Artillery

 2d Bn, 3d Field Artillery (155-mm, SP) (selfpropelled)

 4th Bn, 29th Field Artillery (155-mm, SP)

 Battery C, 333d Field Artillery (Target Acquisition Battery)

Division Support Command

 501st Forward Support Battalion

 47th Support Battalion

 123rd Support Battalion

 127th Support Battalion

Attached elements of:

 30th Medical Brigade (V Corps)

 22d Signal Brigade (V Corps)

 16th Corps Support Group (3d Corps Support Command)

 205th Military Intelligence Brigade (V Corps)

 18th Military Police Brigade (V Corps)23

On 1 August 1995, 1st AD ceased routine operations and began to develop 

OPLAN Task Force Eagle 95-426 for possible deployment to Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

At the same time, to avoid duplication of effort, V Corps began developing a 

decision support template that would enumerate the sequence of decisions that 

would confront the commanding general.

Further operational and logistical planning continued. On 12 October 1995, 

the Contact Group negotiated a ceasefire in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which resulted 

in USAREUR beginning formal planning for the deployment of a peace 

implementation mission in that divided country. To facilitate plan development, 

USAREUR conducted a series of planning and training exercises called Exercise 

Mountain Eagle at Grafenwoehr Training Area. Exercise Mountain Eagle I [25 
9

September to 15 November 1995] helped prepare the 1st AD’s two brigades for 

the initial occupation of Task Force Eagle’s area of responsibility in northern 

Bosnia-Herzegovina. Exercise Mountain Eagle II [3 to 20 December 1995], held 

at Schweinfurt, Germany, was largely a CPX (Command Post Exercise)/FCX (Fire 

Coordination Exercise) to prepare a unit for a contingency deployment to BosniaHerzegovina.

On 30 November 1995, the V Corps plan was published as USAREUR 40105 

Campaign Plan. Key points of this plan were:

• TFE (Task Force Eagle) will be built around 1st AD

• USAREUR will establish a Forward Headquarters near the area of operations 

for national support with Commander, V Corps, designated DCG, USAREUR 

(FWD)

• USAREUR retains control of non-deploying forces remaining in Central 

European Region and continues currently assigned operational and life support 

missions

• V Corps establishes TFV (Task Force Victory) in Wiesbaden under the 

command of DCG, V Corps, to provide command and control for 1st AD and V 

Corps separate brigade rear detachments and non-deploying forces

• TFV is from elements of VCA (V Corps Artillery) Staff augmented by 3d 

COSCOM (Corps Support Command)

• V Corps (Main) remains in Heidelberg to provide planning and mission 

support for deployed Corps forces

• CG, 1st ID (Infantry Division) retains command of non-deploying division 

forces reportedly directly to CG, V Corps.24 

The Campaign Plan specified the tasks for each of USAREUR’s commands and 

provided a deliberate timetable for a sequential deployment to Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

Of necessity, the start of such a deployment depended on the date the Dayton 

Peace Accords were signed, which was designated G-Day [Go Day]. This would 

be when the main force deployed into Bosnia-Herzegovina. The enabling force 

would move into the theater and prepare entry points for the main IFOR fourteen 

days earlier on C-Day [Commencement Day].25 The Transfer of Authority from 

UNPROFOR to IFOR was planned for five days after G-Day, or G + 5, which 

would be designated D-Day. IFOR was expected to be in control of the Zone of 

Separation between the former warring faction by D + 30.26 

Peace negotiations were ongoing as the military continued its planning for 

implementing the envisioned peace agreement. A fragile ceasefire had been signed 

on 5 October 1995 and this cessation of hostilities led to the Dayton Proximity 

Talks at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The Dayton Peace 

Accords had been initialed on 21 November 1995 and on 1 December 1995, the 

day after V Corps planners completed USAREUR Campaign Plan 40105, the 

NAC approved the overall military plan and authorized the SACEUR to deploy 
10

the enabling forces.27 This set the ball rolling. The SACEUR then tasked the 

Commander-in-Chief AFSOUTH to assume control of assigned NATO forces as 

COMIFOR (Commander, IFOR). The US Joint Chiefs of Staff issued an execute 

order for the enabling forces on 2 December 1995 which was designated C-Day 

and the President authorized the deployment of U.S forces the following day. 

On 6 December 1995, the first C-130 aircraft carrying 1st AD quartering party 

personnel landed at the Tuzla Airfield at the Sector Northeast of UNPROFOR 

to begin establishing the headquarters of Task Force Eagle and Multinational 

Division-North and to prepare for the 20 December 1995 transfer of authority from 

UNPROFOR to the NATO IFOR.28 

The Dayton Peace Accords, as noted previously, were signed on 14 December 

1995 and on the following day, the UNSC adopted UNSC Resolution 1031 which 

authorized NATO to establish IFOR under unified command and control. The 

NAC approved the overall military plan for OJE on 16 December 1995 and 

directed NATO to begin OJE immediately. The 1st AD Assault CP (Command 

Post) led by Brigadier General Stanley F. Cherrie, initially tried to fly into Tuzla on 

15 December 1995 but was turned back by bad weather on three consecutive days. 

It finally landed at Sarajevo on 17 December and moved overland to Tuzla. The illfated UNPROFOR relinquished command and transferred authority for operations 

in Bosnia-Herzegovina on 20 December 1995. Many of the UNPROFOR units and 

soldiers remained in place or made slight positional adjustments, transitioning to 

one of three multinational division sectors of IFOR. The three framework nations 

of the United States, United Kingdom, and France formed the senior leadership 

and core of the three IFOR multinational divisions (MND), MND-North, MNDSouth West, and MND-South East, respectively.29

The extremely inclement Balkan weather, coupled with movement control 

planning shortfalls, personnel constraints, railroad strikes and unrealistic 

expectations from the post-German unification railway privatization, caused 

numerous delays in the deployment of 1st AD to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The 

deployment plan was revised during execution with flexibility and innovation being 

shown at all levels.30 An officer who served in the 1st AD deployment operations 

cell during this period recalled that; “I have seen numerous articles and speeches 

in which people have lauded the deployment to Bosnia as a great success. I would 

categorize it as more of a triumph of the human spirit over an insane system, 

narrowly averting catastrophe.”31

The Sava River, the northern boundary of Bosnia-Herzegovina with Croatia, 

was a major obstacle the 1st AD needed to cross during its deployment. The 

longest river in the former Yugoslavia, the Sava River was at its high-water 

mark in December 1995. US Army engineers began bridging the Sava on 20 

December 1995 but flooding caused them to suspend their task. To meet the 

increased bridging requirement, General William W. Crouch, CINCUSAREUR 
11

(Commander-in-Chief, USAREUR), was able to withdraw the equipment of an 

entire additional engineer float bridge company from national prepositioned war 

reserve stocks. The additional bridge sections were flown in by C-17 strategic 

airlift aircraft, then emplaced over the raging river with the assistance of CH47 heavy-lift helicopters.32 Finally, on 31 December 1995, after construction of 

the 2,113-feet long bridge, “the largest pontoon bridge since World War II,”33 an 

M1A1 Abrams tank from the 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 1st AD led the 

US Army contingent across the Sava River.34 Task Force Eagle had arrived in 

Bosnia-Herzegovina.

 Task Force Eagle Sector, Bosnia-Herzegovina,

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, 21 February 1996. 
12

Command and Control

The command and control relationship and chain of command, which had been 

developed exclusively for the unique military situation presented by OJE, was 

relatively unorthodox by normal US Army standards and practice. It reflected 

post-Cold War realities, the end of bipolar superpower rivalry, and the increasing 

role of the United Nations as well as NATO in out-of-region peacekeeping and 

peace enforcement operations. Both USAREUR and V Corps had to split their 

operations and provide forward elements to deploy the force to Bosnia-Herzegovina 

and to conduct Title 10 activities, while concurrently planning and conducting 

other Central Region and out-of-sector operations. V Corps also established Task 

Force Victory to provide command and control for rear detachment elements 

and facilitate the preparation and deployment of individual replacements and 

augmentees to Task Force Eagle. Troop caps in designated areas of responsibility 

and support areas had an impact on the chain of command. Within BosniaHerzegovina, the IFOR land component was the ACE ARRC, commanded by a 

British Lieutenant General. The three subordinate elements of the ARRC were the 

three multinational divisions. Task Force Eagle provided the largest number of 

soldiers to Multinational Division-North which also contained troop contingents 

from eleven other nations, including Russia, which required special command 

arrangements. In all, TFE was organized into 42 battalions and fifteen brigades 

and totaled about 25,000 soldiers.35 An additional factor of paramount importance 

was a seemingly inviolate provision in the PDD (Presidential Decision Directive) 

25, “US Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations,” signed by President 

William J. Clinton on 3 May 1994, that, “The President retains and will never 

relinquish command authority over US forces.”36 

 Great efforts were made to minimize any potential problems and inefficiencies 

associated with a seemingly parallel US/NATO chain-of-command for US forces in 

the IFOR, while concurrently ensuring US military leadership did not dominate or 

unbalance the US-European command structure. The SACEUR, US Army General 

George A. Joulwan, was in charge of NATO military forces. His headquarters were 

in Mons, Belgium, and Stuttgart, Germany. AFSOUTH, commanded by US Navy 

Admiral Leighton W. Smith, Jr., COMIFOR, was designated the IFOR operationallevel headquarters for OJE. Headquartered in Naples, Italy, AFSOUTH had 

neither the personnel nor the equipment to lead an expeditionary land force into 

combat. Initially, an improvised IFOR headquarters was set up in Zagreb, Croatia 

and in March of 1996 it was relocated to the Residency in Sarajevo, Bosnia. The 

ACE ARRC, under the command of British Army Lieutenant General Sir Michael 

Walker, was established as the IFOR’s Corps-level land component command. 

Walker commanded the ARRC, first from the Headquarters, ARRC (Forward), in 

Kiseljak, Bosnia, then after January 1996 from the Headquarters, ARRC (Main), 

located in the suburb of Ilidza, about seven miles southwest of Sarajevo. 
13

Chain of Command for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR.37

The three framework nations of the United States, United Kingdom, and France 

provided the division headquarters elements and the majority of the troops to, 

respectively, MND-North, MND-South West, and MND-South East, which were 

OPCON to the ARRC. These three divisions were headquartered in the Bosnian 

cities of, respectively, Tuzla, Banja Luka, and Mostar. 

One notable exception to the chain-of-command involved the special 

arrangements made to include Russian forces in IFOR. The SACEUR controlled 

the Russian Brigade commanded by Russian Army General Alexander I. Lentsov 

through the Deputy Commander of IFOR for Russian forces, Colonel General 

Leontiy P. Shevtsov.38 The ARRC commander exercised tactical control of the 

Russian Brigade through the commanding general, MND-North, Major General 

William L. Nash, in whose area of responsibility it operated.
14

From the perspective of USAREUR, the key command and control issue it faced 

in OJE was how the CINCUSAREUR would execute his Title 10 sustainment 

responsibilities as the MACOM (Major Command) commander.39 Several options 

were considered, including the use of V Corps headquarters; constituting a Seventh 

Army headquarters or using the USAREUR headquarters and staff, either from 

its permanent station in Heidelberg, Germany or at the ISB in Hungary.40 The 

proposal to deploy the V Corps headquarters forward, while perhaps the most 

efficient course of action, “apparently raised concerns at the NATO headquarters,” 

according to Colonel Richard M. Swain, “that it would be preempted over 

operational command by the existence of another Corps headquarters to which the 

US division commander would have to be responsive. There was a real fear that, 

with the United States in possession of the SACEUR and COMIFOR [positions], 

the implied diminution of the role of the ARRC would completely unbalance the 

US-European command structure.”41 As a result, General Crouch developed a 

hybrid plan, to combine the USAREUR and V Corps headquarters in a sort of 

“condominium.” 

This command structure and organization was promulgated, as stated previously, 

in USAREUR Campaign Plan 40105 of 30 November 1995: “USAREUR 

will establish a Forward (Headquarters) near the AO for national support with 

Commander, V Corps, designated DCG, USAREUR (FWD).” This permitted 

the CINCUSAREUR to exercise administrative control of US Army forces in 

Bosnia through this new element, named Headquarters, USAREUR (Forward). 

Lieutenant General John N. Abrams, V Corps commander, was designated acting 

DCINC (Deputy Commander-in-Chief, USAREUR-Forward), with duty in Taszar, 

Hungary, in charge of the NSE [commanded by Major General James Wright, 21st 

Theater Army Area Command (TAACOM) commander42] and the ISB. He also 

retained command of V Corps and responsibility for V Corps non-deploying units 

and rear detachments of deployed units, as well as residual NATO and USEUCOM 

missions, from and in Central Region. General Abrams’ key staff members 

included Major General Daniel J. Petrosky, then USAREUR and Seventh Army 

deputy chief of staff, operations, who served initially as chief of staff and Brigadier 

General Burwell B. Bell, assistant division commander for support, 3d Infantry 

Division, who served as chief of operations and later as chief of staff. Brigadier 

General Samuel Kindred, then commanding general of the 3d Corps Support 

Command and commander of the 21st TAACOM (Forward), also became logistics 

chief of USAREUR (Forward).43 

USAREUR Headquarters (Forward) commanded the NSE and ISB, under 

which fell the 21st TAACOM (Forward) and the area support group responsible 

for commanding and maintaining the installations. USAREUR (Forward) 

headquarters also commanded all deploying elements of Task Force Eagle until 

they crossed the Sava River, the southern boundary of Croatia and northern border 

of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and entered the NATO area of operations and came under 
15

NATO operational control. Even though this river crossing resulted in the unit’s 

transfer of control, USAREUR (Forward) provided all logistical support to Task 

Force Eagle and conducted Title 10 responsibilities for all American forces in 

Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

A substantial portion of the V Corps staff deployed to Hungary and served on 

the USAREUR (Forward) staff, V Corps personnel filled 243 of the 347 positions 

authorized in the December 1995 USAREUR (Forward) manning document.44 The 

combining of USAREUR and V Corps staff sections and personnel in USAREUR 

Headquarters (Forward), who initially retained responsibilities in their respective 

headquarters, and their frequent rotation between Germany and Hungary, eventually 

caused an amount of uncertainty in their duties. This was generally corrected over 

time as the staff became more cohesive with a single mission, although the role of 

plans headquarters for USAREUR (Forward) was relegated to V Corps (Main).45

Concurrently, USAREUR Headquarters (Main) remained in Heidelberg, where 

it commanded all the areas support groups and base support battalions in Germany 

and managed community programs for non-deploying units in Central Region. V 

Corps Headquarters (Main) also remained in Heidelberg, where its staff officers 

conducted operational planning for Bosnia-Herzegovina, and ensured sustainment 

of deployed forces. Moreover, V Corps (Main) executed all remaining Corps 

missions and remained prepared to participate in any European Command or 

Central Command contingency operations.

The traditional command architecture was further complicated in this split-based 

operation by the deployment of V Corps’ major subordinate commands to Hungary 

and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The 1st AD and five of the Corps’ separate brigades 

had major missions in these nations and deployed the majority of their soldiers 

forward. Upon arrival in Bosnia, 1st AD came under NATO operational control, 

as did the elements of the 18th Military Police Brigade, 22d Signal Brigade, 30th 

Medical Brigade, 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, and 16th Corps Support 

Command that were attached to 1st AD. Other subordinate units of the military 

police, signal, and medical brigades served as part of the NSE in Taszar, Hungary 

and the 130th Engineer Brigade was deployed to conduct forward engineering 

missions. This situation resulted in the majority of V Corps’ combat power being 

deployed and no longer under V Corps command and control.46 

With a large number of V Corps staff personnel deployed to Hungary to serve 

on the USAREUR (Forward) staff and those V Corps staff members remaining 

in Heidelberg generally devoting their time to planning for operations in BosniaHerzegovina and other mission support activities, there were not enough senior 

personnel available to provide adequate command and control over the rear 

detachments of V Corps’ deployed units and non-deploying elements. Largely for 

that reason, USAREUR Campaign Plan 40105 also directed; “V Corps establishes 
16

Task Force Victory (TFV) in Wiesbaden under the command of DCG, V Corps, 

to provide command and control for 1st AD and V Corps separate brigade rear 

detachments and non-deploying forces.”47

It was no exaggeration to note that, “Operation Joint Endeavor was the most 

complex operational command and control challenge for the US Army in Europe 

since World War II.”48

Task Force Victory

Fragmentary Order (FRAGO) 24 to USAREUR Campaign Plan 40105, 

established Task Force (TF) Victory to be headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany 

on 15 December 1995. The V Corps Commander, Abrams, designated Major 

General Walter H. Yates, V Corps deputy commander, to also serve as TF Victory 

commander. The staff of TF Victory was a composite staff, drawn mainly from 

V Corps Artillery (VCA) and augmented from non-deploying personnel of the 3d 

COSCOM staff.49

Task Force Victory Organization, 27 February 1996.50

The VCA staff was informed it would be forming the TF Victory staff about a 

month before FRAGO 24 was issued. This gave the VCA staff time to conduct a 

mission analysis and develop an operational concept plan for the Task Force, which 
17

was briefed to Abrams on 26 November 1995. After modification, the plan was 

briefed to the V Corps staff on 1 December 1995 and to the brigade commanders 

on 13 December 1995. By the time FRAGO 24 was issued two days later, the 

duties, responsibilities, and mission of TF Victory had been firmly defined:

Task Force Victory commands and controls rear detachments and non-deploying 

units of 1AD and Corps Separate Brigades to support Joint Endeavor and other 

EUCOM/CENTCOM missions. It provides individual and unit replacements, 

trains non-deploying units for mid-intensity conflicts, and assists family support 

activities. Upon redeployment, it receives TF Eagle and assists re-integration 

into the Corps.51

The TF Victory headquarters was established in a building recently vacated by 

the 3d COSCOM at Wiesbaden Air Base. TF Victory controlled fifteen separate 

brigades and the 1st AD rear detachment. This practice varied little from the 

normal V Corps command arrangements, since the Corps deputy commander was 

responsible for supervising the separate brigades and overseeing their training and 

readiness. Moreover, the major TF Victory responsibilities included “command 

and control; RSOI (Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and Integration);52

certifying individual replacements and units; maintaining readiness of nondeployed units; supporting exercises and current operations; care of families and 

rear detachments; and rear detachment integration with parent unit.”53

Task Force Victory Roles and Missions, 21 March 1996.54
18

Task Force Victory Command Relationships, 21 March 1996.55

In terms of command relationships, USAREUR (Main) commanded USAREUR 

(Forward), which in turn initially commanded V Corps (Main), TF Victory, and the 

3d Infantry Division (3d ID). USAREUR (Forward) was relieved and subordinated 

to V Corps (Main) before the end of the IFOR mission from the responsibility of 

commanding TF Victory and 3d ID (later re-designated 1st Infantry Division). The 

normal readiness reporting and logistical relationships between units were restored 

when this later alteration was made to the command relationships.56

After having completed its year-long mission, TF Victory was “disestablished” 

effective 15 December 1996 by FRAGO 226 to V Corps OPORD 40105.57 The 

establishment, activities, and operations of TF Victory were indispensable to the 

success of OJE; indeed, one source was convinced TF Victory “was the solution 

to many of the major issues in the rear area prior to deployment.”58 From the 

USAREUR perspective, the magnitude of TF Victory’s accomplishments in 

completing so many tasks and projects was in itself “a Herculean task.”59 

Conclusion

The establishment and deployment of the Implementation Force in Operation 

JOINT ENDEAVOR in 1995 under NATO control, was instrumental in ensuring 

compliance with the Dayton Peace Accords and preventing the return of a veritable 
19

bloodbath to the Balkans. This complex and challenging military operation was 

the first major out-of-area peace enforcement operation in NATO’s half-century 

history. The volatility, unpredictability, and urgency of the negotiations leading 

up to the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords on 14 December 1995 frequently 

hindered detailed planning and logistical preparations. Nonetheless, US Army, 

Europe’s major subordinate command, V Corps, provided experienced leadership, 

staff expertise, and the soldiers of a reinforced armored division to ensure the 

success of the NATO Implementation Force in Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR 

in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995-1996. There is no doubt the unprecedentedly 

successful deployment, operations, sustainment, and redeployment of Task Force 

Eagle, “made manageable by the superlative training and preparation that preceded 

the deployment of Task Force Eagle units and soldiers,”60 can be attributed directly 

to the professionalism and proficiency of V Corps’ senior leadership, officers, and 

soldiers.

The interviews contained in this anthology highlight, from the perspectives of 

officers in generally senior ranks and responsible positions, the V Corps military 

decision-making processes and actions to deploy the 1st AD to Bosnia-Herzegovina 

as part of the IFOR, sustain, it, and later redeployment it to Central Region, while 

simultaneously establishing a Corps task force called Task Force Victory, to manage 

rear detachment operations and provide training oversight to non-deploying units. 

This was at the time a significant operation and the experiences and insight of V 

Corps leaders and staff officers deserve to be recorded and learned from as much 

as possible. 

The first interview is with Major General Walter H. Yates, who served as Deputy 

Commander, USAREUR (Forward); Commanding General, Task Force Victory; and 

Deputy Commanding General, V Corps. Major General Yates provides an overview 

of the operation, highlighting his observations “from the training perspective at 

Grafenwoehr; how Task Force Victory came to be conceived and implemented; 

what we did in TF Victory; and what I saw after I came down here [to the National 

Support Element in Taszar, Hungary] as the Forward commander.” The picture 

that emerges is one of professionalism, attention to detail, diligence, flexibility, 

and innovation.

Major General William L. Nash, commanding general, 1st AD, was interviewed 

twice. The first interview was conducted on 19 May 1996, six months after 1st AD 

deployed to Bosnia as part of the IFOR. In this first interview, Major General Nash 

explains the initial actions he and his division took upon entering Bosnia, how his 

commander’s intent evolved during this period, and the role of the media in such 

an operation. The second interview with Major General Nash was conducted a 

year later to solicit his retrospective views and comments on Operation JOINT 
20

ENDEAVOR and the applicability of that experience to the development of 

doctrine and force structure of the United States Army.

The fourth interview was conducted with Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Milford, 

who served as Assistant Chief of Staff, G1, of V Corps Artillery, then became 

G1 of Task Force Victory when it was established. In his interview, Lieutenant 

Colonel Milford discusses the creation of Task Force Victory, the overlapping of 

responsibilities of V Corps Artillery staff officers who also served on the Task 

Force Victory staff, and personnel management and flow for Operation JOINT 

ENDEAVOR.

Lieutenant Colonel David K. Swindell served as Executive Officer, 41st Field 

Artillery Brigade [a subordinate unit of the V Corps Artillery] and Acting Assistant 

Chief of Staff, G3, Task Force Victory. In his detailed exposition, Lieutenant 

Colonel Swindell chronicles the initial establishment and organization of Task Force 

Victory and he gives insightful examples of the Task Force’s role and responsibility 

in support of the NATO peace enforcement operation in the Balkans. Major John 

Lucynski was serving as Operations Officer, Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, V Corps 

Artillery, when he was tapped to serve in the same position on the Task Force 

Victory staff. In his interview, Major Lucynski provides insightful information 

on Task Force Victory’s role in overseeing training and coordinating with support 

units and activities. Another member of the Task Force Victory G3 section was 

Major Arthondo Mardee Taylor, who served mainly as a Training Officer. He 

provides specific information on his main duty, which was coordinating Reception, 

Staging, Onward Movement, and Integration activities for units to conduct training 

at the Combat Maneuver Training Center, Hohenfels, Germany, preparatory to 

deployment to participate in or directly support Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR.

The V Corps Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, G1, Lieutenant Colonel James 

Clifford, provides considerable insight into the role of the G1 in staff planning; 

morale, welfare, and recreation; family support groups; and the deployment of 

Emergency Essential Civilians from V Corps in Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. 

Colonel Jeffrey N. Christianson, AG (Adjutant General), V Corps, and CW4 Patrick 

McElroy, Chief, Personnel Actions Division, AG, V Corps, relate their experiences 

in strength management operations, the individual replacement system, and crossleveling unit strengths before deployment to the Balkans.

Planning, threat and terrain analysis, and force protection issues are addressed 

in the interview with Major Kenneth O. McCreedy, who served as Chief, Plans 

and Exercises, Assistant Chief of Staff, G2, V Corps, during the planning for 

and execution of Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. He also discusses the role of 

various intelligence platforms and intelligence planning and operations during the 

sustainment and redeployment phases of this mission. 
21

Three interviews covered in detail the planning and operational aspects of V 

Corps involvement in Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. Lieutenant Colonel Albert 

Bryant, Jr., Chief, Plans, Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, V Corps, chronicles the 

frequently hasty planning that took place prior to the short-notice troop deployment, 

as well as various engineer and logistical aspects of the operation, including force 

structure and allocation and the availability of construction engineer capability 

or construction-trained forces as expeditionary forces. Lieutenant Colonel Peter 

Schifferle, Chief, War Plans, Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, V Corps, narrates the 

use and evolution of the decision support template, the planning timeline, the 

development of the plan, the program and results of the mid-October 1995 V 

Corps planning conference at Grafenwoehr, and courses of action pertaining to 

intermediate staging base and entry route selection. The difficulty of planning 

for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, he notes, was increased because “it was such 

a rapidly changing, rapidly emerging scenario with multiple chains of command 

issuing information.” The organization and operations of the V Corps Crisis Action 

Team is thoroughly described by Lieutenant Colonel Manuel J.F. Hernandez, 

Chief, Current Operations, Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, V Corps.

Lieutenant Colonel James Terrell, Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, G4, V 

Corps, discusses the many challenging aspects of planning for and providing 

logistical support to Task Force Eagle, including transportation, route and base 

camp selection, the use of the LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program), 

and from a logistical standpoint, the planning and preparation for a “worst-case” 

scenario upon entry into Bosnia-Herzegovina. Lieutenant Colonel Steven P. 

Goligowski, Chief, Plans and Operations, Assistant Chief of Staff, G4, V Corps, 

highlights the challenges of logistical planning in an uncertain environment with 

limited guidance. He also notes the impact of the personnel force cap and force 

structure restrictions in Bosnia-Herzegovina on logistical planning and support 

operations, the use of civilian contractors, the difficulty of quantifying the 

maintenance mission, and the importance of echeloning support assets. 

More specialized aspects of the V Corps’ planning and execution of Operation 

JOINT ENDEAVOR are highlighted in the final three interviews in this anthology. 

Lieutenant Colonel John A. Ylinen, Chief, Automation, Assistant Chief of Staff, 

G6, V Corps, discusses the development of the automation architecture, including 

unit organization, hardware, and automation training [or the lack thereof] in the 

Army as a whole and especially prior to deployment. Colonel Floyd C. Hood, 

Assistant Chief of Staff, Resource Management, V Corps, chronicles the funding 

procedures and flow for V Corps participation in Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. 

He expresses concern [a harbinger for post-Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR 

missions] about the increasing costs and contracts of the LOGCAP. Finally, Major 

Ronald Miller, Chief, International and Operational Law, Office of the Staff Judge 

Advocate, V Corps, explains legal aspects of this operation, focusing on Rules of 

Engagement.
22

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR in the Balkans, NATO’s first major out-of-area 

peace enforcement operation in the alliance’s half-century history, was probably 

the most complex and challenging military operation conducted by the US 

Army in the first decade following the end of the Cold War. This unprecedented 

military operation, while not flawless in planning or execution, was characterized 

by innovative and diligent planning, meticulous and thorough preparations, and 

charismatic and flexible leadership as shown in the eighteen interviews of V 

Corps commanders and staff officers contained in this volume. Professional and 

dedicated military officers from the V Corps Deputy Commanding General to field 

grade V Corps staff planners and soldier, routinely demonstrated these attributes 

and overcame all obstacles to achieve mission success. There is much to learn 

from and practical value in their experiences. 

Nineteenth-century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck reportedly 

observed; “Fools say they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by other people’s 

experience.”61 

Notes

1. The Dayton Peace Accords, more formally known as the General Framework 

Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, were negotiated and initialed on 

21 November 1995 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. This 

peace agreement was signed in Paris, France, on 14 December 1995. The Dayton 

Peace Accords also established Bosnia and Herzegovina as a single, democratic, and 

multiethnic state with two political entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina 

and Republika Srpska. 

2. United Nations, Security Council, S/RES/1031 (1995), 15 December 1995, p. 3.

3. Human Rights Library, University of Minnesota, Annex 1A: Agreement on 

the Military Aspects of the Peace Settlement, Article I to paragraph 1.(b) of the 

Paris Peace Agreement (Accords), http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/icty/dayton/

daytonannex1A.html (accessed 25 February 2008). 

4. LCDR Richard L. Brasel, USN, “Operation Joint Endeavor: Operational 

Guidance from Principles of Operations Other Than War” (Unpublished paper, 

Newport, RI: Naval War College, 1996), 2-3.

5. LCDR Richard L. Brasel, USN, “Operation Joint Endeavor: Operational 

Guidance from Principles of Operations Other Than War” (Unpublished paper, 

Newport, RI: Naval War College, 1996), 4.

6. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, UN Security Council 3055th Meeting, 

Resolution S/RES/743, 21 February 1992, http://www.nato.int/ifor/un/u920221a.htm 

(accessed 10 March 2008). 

7. See, for example, Brigadier General O. van der Wind, Report Based on the 

Debriefing on Srebrenica (Assen: n.p., 1995).

8. (R. Cody Phillips), Bosnia-Herzegovina: The US Army’s Role in Peace 

Enforcement Operations, 1995-2004, CMH Pub 70-97-1 (Washington, DC: 

Superintendent of Documents, US Government Printing Office, (2005)), 13.

9. NATO, Regional Headquarters Allied Forces Southern Europe, “Operation 

Deliberate Force,” AFSOUTH Fact Sheet, 16 December 2002, http://www.afsouth.

nato.int/factsheets/DeliberateForceFactSheet.htm (accessed 10 March 2008).
23

10. Stephen P. Gehring, From the Fulda Gap to Kuwait: US Army, Europe and the 

Gulf War (Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1998), 17.

11. Headquarters, V Corps, Operation Joint Endeavor – V Corps After Action 

Review: Central Region Operations, V Corps (Main) and Task Force Victory

(Heidelberg, Germany: Headquarters, V Corps, 1997), 2. Hereafter cited as V Corps 

OJE AAR. 

12. Gehring, 8.

13. V Corps OJE AAR , 2.

14. Gehring, 37-38.

15. Maddox, 5 June 1992, quoted in Charles E. Kirkpatrick, “Ruck It Up!” The 

Post-Cold War Transformation of V Corps, 1990-2001 (Washington, DC: Department 

of the Army, 2006), 389.

16. Briefing notes in folder, “Operation Joint Endeavor – Background Papers: 

German Attack on Yugoslavia,” n.d. (May 1992), Reference Files, Command History 

Office, V Corps, Heidelberg, Germany. 

17. Kirkpatrick, 389.

18. In 1992, after the end of the Cold War, the British 1 Corps was re-designated 

the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC). Although commanded by a British 

Army Lieutenant General, the ARRC is no longer a purely British unit. The United 

Kingdom, designated the “framework nation,” provided about 80 percent of the 

funding and 60 percent of the staffing of the HQ. Originally headquartered in 

Bielefeld, Germany, the Headquarters, ARRC, was relocated to Rheindahlen Military 

Complex, Germany, in 1994. HQ, ARRC is under the operational command of the 

Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR). 

19. Headquarters, United States Army, Europe, and Seventh Army -- Command 

History: 1 January 1993-31 December 1995 (Heidelberg, Germany: Military History 

Office, Headquarters, United States Army, Europe, and Seventh Army, 1999), 137-

138; SECRET, info used UNCLAS. Hereafter cited as USAREUR Command History, 

1993-1995. 

20. V Corps OJE AAR, (B-18).

21. V Corps OJE AAR, 22. Later, Major General William L. Nash, Commanding 

General, 1st AD, and other commanders were able to make a limited reconnaissance 

of the Bosnia-Herzegovina AOR on 22 October 1995.

22. Kirkpatrick, 395.

23. Kirkpatrick, 398.

24. V Corps OJE AAR, 23-24.

25. Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Operation Joint 

Endeavor Fact Sheet, No. 001-B, December 1, 1995, http://www.dtic.mil/bosnia/fs/

fwjointe.html (accessed 28 October 2008). 

26. Richard M. Swain, Neither War nor Not War: Army Command in Europe 

during the Time of Peace Operations: Tasks Confronting USAREUR Commanders, 

1994-2000 (Carlisle, PA: US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2003), 

117-118. See also Kirkpatrick, 408.

27. (Warner Stark), “The Balkan Adventure” (Unpublished draft paper, Heidelberg, 

Germany: Military History Office, Headquarters, United States Army, Europe, and 

Seventh Army, 2000), page unknown (chapter 5, 12). The NATO enabling force 

would consist of some 2,000 troops, of which 1,463 would be American.

28. Headquarters, US Army, Europe, Operation Joint Endeavor – USAREUR 
24

Headquarters After Action Report, 2 vols. (Heidelberg, Germany: Headquarters, US 

Army, Europe, 1997), 1: xi-xii, xx. Hereafter cited as USAREUR OJE AAR. See also 

Brigadier General Stanley F. Cherrie, US Army, “Task Force Eagle,” Military Review

77, no. 4 (July-August 1997).

29. (Phillips), 21.

30. From Kirkpatrick, 416.

31. Lieutenant Colonel Michael Jones, quoted in Swain, 123.

32. Swain, 128.

33. (Phillips,) 19. For detailed information on the December 1995 Sava River 

bridge construction and 1st AD crossing, see Headquarters, United States Army, 

Europe, and Seventh Army, Military Operations: The US Army in Bosnia and 

Herzegovina, Army in Europe Pamphlet 525-100, 7 October 2003, 18-20, and Task 

Force Eagle, Task Force Eagle, 20 Dec 95-10 Nov 96: After Action Report, n.d., 

I-2-I-3, II-8-II-9. The latter is hereafter cited as TFE AAR.

34. E-mail message, Mr. Steven Ruhnke, Curator, 1st AD Museum, to author, 26 

November 2008, subj: RE: 1-1 Cav, Task Force Eagle, 1995-1996.

35. TFE AAR, II-2, and Cherrie.

36. Bureau of International Organizational Affairs, US Department of State, 

“Clinton Administration Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations (PDD 

25), Executive Summary,” 22 February 1996, p. 9, http://www.fas.org/irp/offdics/

pdd25.htm (accessed 21 January 2009). There was, however, a caveat to this 

provision: “On a case by case basis, the President will consider placing appropriate 

US forces under the operational control of a competent UN commander for specific 

UN operations authorized by the Security Council. . . . Any large scale participation 

of US forces in a major peace enforcement mission that is likely to involve combat 

should ordinarily be conducted under US command and operational control or 

through competent regional organizations such as NATO or ad hoc coalitions.” Ibid. 

See also J. William Snyder, Jr., “’Command’ versus ‘Operational Control’: A Critical 

Review of PDD-25,” 1995:

http://www.uhuh.com/laws/pdd25sny.htm (accessed 21 January 2009), and Swain, 

86-88.

37. From Kirkpatrick, 417.

38. Larry Wentz, ed., Lessons from Bosnia: The IFOR Experience, pages unknown 

(chapter 14):

http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/smo/docs/ifor/bosch14.htm (accessed 20 November 

2008). Of related interest, see Colonel General Leontiy P. Shevtsov, “Russian-NATO 

Military Cooperation in Bosnia: A Basis for the Future?” NATO Review 45, no. 2 

(March 1997): 17-21.

39. These responsibilities, under the provisions of Title 10, United States Code, 

Section 3013(b), include recruiting; organizing; supplying; equipping (including 

research and development); training; servicing; mobilizing; demobilizing; 

administering (including the morale and welfare of personnel); maintaining; the 

construction, outfitting, and repair of military equipment, and the construction, 

maintenance, and repair of buildings, structures, and utilities, and the acquisition of 

real property. Headquarters, Department of the Army, The Army, FM (Field Manual) 

1 (Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, June 2005), figure 2-1, 

http://www.army.mil/fm1/figures.html#section3 (accessed 25 March 2008). 

40. USAREUR OJE AAR, 1: xiv.

41. Swain, 101.
25

42. (Stark), page unknown (chapter 5, 4).

43. Kirkpatrick, 435-436. See also, for interesting insight into the origins, 

establishment, and operations of USAREUR (Forward), interview with Brigadier 

General Burwell B. Bell, Chief of Staff, Headquarters, USAREUR (Forward), 

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, conducted by Lieutenant Colonel Walter E. Kretchik, 

V Corps Command Historian (sic), and Staff Sergeant Benedict, 102 Military History 

Detachment, 20 and 24 March 1996, at Taszar, Hungary; typescript transcript in OJE 

files, USAREUR Military History Office, Heidelberg, Germany. 

44. V Corps OJE AAR, 31.

45. V Corps OJE AAR, 28.

46. V Corps OJE AAR, 29.

47. V Corps OJE AAR, 24.

48. USAREUR OJE AAR, 1: 45.

49. USAREUR OJE AAR, 1: 283.

50. “TF Victory (Organization),” unnumbered slide, in V Corps Briefing, “Task 

Force Victory Organizational Charts,” 27 February 1996, Reference Files, Command 

History Office, V Corps, Heidelberg, Germany. 

51. “TF Victory (Organization),” unnumbered slide, in V Corps Briefing, “Task 

Force Victory Organizational Charts

52. Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and Integration.

53. USAREUR OJE AAR, 1: 284.

54. “TF Victory Roles & Missions,” unnumbered slide, in V Corps Briefing, “Task 

Force Victory Command Briefing,” 21 March 1996, Reference Files, Command 

History Office, V Corps, Heidelberg, Germany. 

55. Information Paper, V Corps History Office, 30 October 2002, subj: Rear Area 

and Sustainment Operations during Operation Joint Endeavor, Reference Files, 

Command History Office, V Corps, Heidelberg, Germany.

56. “TF Victory Command Relationships,” unnumbered slide, in V Corps Briefing, 

“Task Force Victory Command Briefing,” 21 March 1996, Reference Files, Command 

History Office, V Corps, Heidelberg, Germany. 

57. “Disestablishment of TFV,” unnumbered slide (slide 36), in Briefing, “Task 

Force Victory Command Briefing,” 9 December 1996, Reference Files, Command 

History Office, V Corps, Heidelberg, Germany. 

58. V Corps OJE AAR, 76.

59. USAREUR OJE AAR, 1: 284.

60. (Phillips), 39. 

61. Bismarck, quoted in B.H. Liddell Hart, “Why Don’t We Learn from History,” 

Part 1, “History and Truth,”:

http://infohost.nmt.edu/~shipman/reading/liddell/c01.html (accessed 13 May 

2009).

27

Interview with Major General Walter H. Yates, Deputy Commander, 

USAREUR (Forward)

Commanding General, Task Force Victory and 

Deputy Commanding General, V Corps, Operation JOINT 

ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Lieutenant Colonel Walter E. Kretchik, Army Component 

Command Historian, Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, 25 May 1996, at 

Taszar, Hungary

Q. Sir, what is your present unit of assignment and duty position? 

A. I am the Deputy Commanding General, V Corps, a position I held prior to 

this deployment. As we prepared to deploy, we were going through training in 

Grafenwoehr. We started looking at what the command and control aspects of the 

operation would be and where the command and control nodes would be. The 

Corps commander decided to use conventional Corps command and control nodes 

which would involve a forward CP (command post), a rear CP, and a main CP. 

As we looked at that layout, and there’s a lot more to this than what I am saying 

obviously, because there was a lot that went on to determine what USAREUR 

(Forward) headquarters would be. This USAREUR (Forward) headquarters is in 

fact, the Corps forward CP. The Corps main CP remained in Heidelberg and the 

Corps rear operated out of Wiesbaden. We made the Corps rear, a task force, Task 

Force Victory, because it had a command function in addition to the Corps rear 

functions. That command function was to command and control; train, maintain, 

and sustain all of the units that remained in the Central Region in lst Armored 

Division and in the Corps separate brigades and the rear detachments of the units 

that deployed. That turned out to be a significant number of battalions, about 

13,000 people, and somewhere just under 4,000 vehicles. 

Q. Sir, in your role as a planner at that point, did you mostly function as a planner 

for Task Force Victory, or were you also participating in the way that USAREUR 

(Forward) became a command and control node? 

A. I only started planning Task Force Victory at a very late date because we 

determined at a very late date that that’s the way we would operate. During the 

train-up time, the Corps commander asked me to spend most of my time making 

sure that the Corps separates that would be part of Task Force Eagle were receiving 

the proper training and validation. The key element there was the 30th Medical 

Brigade, which he and I felt required the greatest amount of training and validation. 

The reason was that the 30th Brigade was a recent derivative of the 7th Medical 

Command, which was not a tactical organization. We had to take the remnants of 

the 7th Medical Command (you remember Brigadier General Brady,1

 the dentist, 

was the interim commander there) and turn it into a TOE organization that could 

deploy and execute. So the units that I was spending a lot of time with were the 
28

MP brigade, the signal brigade, the medical brigade, and the MI brigade. As you 

know, they came down as subordinate elements of Task Force Eagle. 

We decided that Task Force Victory would probably be the way to go and 

Wiesbaden would be the most central location. However, we needed a staff. The 

only staff that was available other than ripping out part of the Corps main staff was 

the V Corps Artillery staff or one of the other brigade staffs that did not deploy. So 

we decided the Corps artillery staff was the best staff to do that function and we 

started planning that just before the primary deployment started. If I remember 

correctly, I moved to Wiesbaden (on) about 6 December (1995) and we started the 

full-up deployment in the middle of December, about 20 December (1995). The 

primary function was to organize and ensure that the force was deployed in a timely 

manner. Once the force was deployed, even before they were completely deployed, 

if you’ll recall, I think we sent out the last battalion of the 1st Armored Division 

from Kirchgoens on 7 February (1996). Before that happened, we had already 

started receiving active and reserve component units from CONUS and we did the 

RSOI for those units. As I mentioned to you, as the deputy Corps commander, I 

have 10 separate brigades that work for me. Even though components of almost 

all of those brigades now have deployed with Task Force Eagle or with USAREUR 

(Forward), only four of the brigade headquarters deployed. We utilized the brigade 

headquarters that remained as sponsor units for RSOI units and attachments 

coming over from CONUS. I think there was something like 30 some units and 

detachments that were deploying. We broke them down by brigade sized unit. The 

brigades contacted these units in the States and found out when they were going to 

be at the mobilization station, when they would go through Fort Benning or Fort 

Dix, picked them up at Rhein-Main, took them back to the brigade areas, scheduled 

them for their rotations at CMTC, and repaired or acquired any equipment they 

did not have. When the units finished CMTC validation, the brigades got them 

prepped for deployment and then deployed them to wherever the units were going.

Immediately following that and really overlapping, we started getting individual 

replacements in. There were 5,000 replacements that came in during January 

(1996). We took the January, February, and March replacements and accelerated 

their arrival so those 5,000 came in during the month of January. The reason for 

that was so that we could get them trained up and ready to replace the folks that had 

been involuntarily extended. We had an extension of PCS moves for 90 days. That 

started to expire in April so the key was to get those soldiers into the units against 

that time schedule. Not all of those soldiers came to Hungary or Bosnia, of course. 

They were distributed to the units in Central Region. It turned out that about 2,000 

went to units that were deployed. This first group of replacements went to then the 

3d Infantry Division and now the 1st Infantry Division,2

 the separates, 1st Armored 

Division, and other USAREUR units. The Corps received about 3,500 of the total 

and of that number the total that eventually went down range (to the Balkans) was 

about 1,900 or 2,000.
29

Q. What kind of “growing pains” did you experience in creating this command and 

control set up, which is not a normal type of Corps operation? 

A. The problem was that it was a very large operation with 13,000 folks in it and 

there were two types of organizations. You had those that were full up, organized, 

TOE units ready to execute a mission and then you had, spread amongst that, 

many rear detachments. So you had the full spectrum. We were looking at how to 

take care of family support groups at the same time that we were worrying about 

tank gunnery for the 2-67 Armor at Kirchgoens and a CMTC rotation for the 3-12 

Infantry in Baumholder. Then we had to look at what condition they were left in 

and how we could get them up to speed to be ready to do that. There were a lot 

of problems there that we could probably have avoided, or could have done some 

things to have alleviated problems. 

One of the difficulties is that the V Corps Artillery staff is not a very large staff. 

It is about one deep. We were working about 20 hours a day and we didn’t have 

a lot of depth in the staff. The other problem was that the scope of the mission 

was so broad that getting everybody on board and getting the staff spun up on the 

breadth of that requirement was a challenge, particularly in view of the lack of 

depth on the staff and being required to execute 20 hours a day on the mission at 

hand plus getting ready for what was going to happen three or four months down 

the road. That was a significant undertaking for a headquarters that size.

 Let me run back real quickly through what we were doing. We were pushing out 

the 1st Armored Division and the separates. We were coordinating and trying to 

make sure that all the right units got to all the right places at the rail heads, that all 

of the pusher units were there. You might say that 21st TAACOM was responsible 

for that. Well yes, 21st TAACOM and USAREUR had the overall plan but if you 

look at the units that were doing it, they were Task Force Victory units: the 69th 

ADA, the 11th Aviation, the 12th Aviation, and the 205th MI. We were doing all of 

that. We were running rail heads, pushing units, and deploying our own units. The 

69th ADA, for example, might be running a rail head and pushing one of the 205th 

MI units. Simultaneously, with a bit of overlap, the RSOI units started coming in. 

Overlapping with that, the individual replacements started coming in. One of my 

biggest problems as Task Force Victory commander was getting a handle on what 

the responsibilities were for TF Victory. RSOI of deploying units would be an 

example. All of the RSOI units coming in were not destined for TF Eagle. Some 

of them were coming in to support the 29th ASG, the 21st TAACOM (Forward), 

the 66th MI - a lot of units that did not fall under TF Eagle or TF Victory control. 

So my problem was to figure out who were the units and who was sponsoring them. 

I never could get any resolution, so finally I sent Wynarsky3

 down to USAREUR to 

sit down with the folks there and figure out who was coming and who TF Victory 

was going to RSOI. 
30

Early on, a unit would just show up and we would get a call; “Task Force Victory, 

you’ve got it.” Well, that’s not the way to handle things. This is not the way to do 

business, getting a call at 2300 (hours) to go out to the airport and pick somebody 

up at 2400 (hours). We forced it. We got a listing of all the units that were coming 

and forced them to give us at least what they thought the requirement was going 

to be for Task Force Victory and it kept getting bigger and bigger. We picked up 

more as time went on. Then we assigned those incoming units to the separate 

brigade commanders, directing the separate brigade commanders to call back to 

the mobilization stations for information. 

When you tried to go through the system to try to find out when an incoming unit 

was going to land at Frankfurt, you didn’t get anywhere but when you called back 

to the detachment commander or the company commander or whatever, he could 

give you precise information. That’s the way we worked it, found the units on the 

ground in the States and kept in touch with them by telephone. Once we got the 

names of the units and telephone numbers, we ran it ourselves. 

Now, while we were doing that, we were simultaneously having meetings at 

Grafenwoehr on train-up. You have to understand that we had a hell of a lot of 

units there. We still had a full-up 69th ADA Brigade and by the way, we knew 

that the 69th was going to deploy a battalion to Saudi Arabia in March (1996).4

So, we hard to start training it. In addition to that, they needed about a 100-man 

maintenance company. I can talk about maintenance in Central Region until you 

get tired of hearing it. Let’s talk about maintenance and oh, by the way, they also 

said they needed a 100-man security detachment because this was about the time 

that the building was bombed in Saudi Arabia.5 So we had to start looking at where 

those folks were going to come from.

Simultaneously, we started getting calls from Taszar (Hungary), asking for a 

security platoon. I don’t know if you understand the AMFL/NSE6

 element in the 

COSCOM. It has an infantry company, actually just two infantry platoons. These 

infantry platoons were on an exercise in Belgium7 and we pulled them back. All 

the exercises continued to go, throughout all of this. Anyway, we pulled them back 

from Belgium and trained them up then sent a platoon to Taszar and a platoon to 

Zagreb (Croatia), for security. Then, they had to be back in Germany by a specified 

date for another exercise with AMFL, about 35 or 40 days later. Simultaneously, 

there was a Bradley battalion in Baumholder, the 3-12 Infantry that had to be 

scheduled for gunnery and a CMTC rotation. We programmed that for April, May, 

and June. Then there was the 2-67 Armor in Kirchgoens, which is a pure tank 

battalion. The battalion in Baumholder is two tank and two mech companies. The 

battalion in Kirchgoens has five tank companies. They had to be programmed for 

training. 
31

The 3-12 Infantry commander, a great commander, both these guys are great 

commanders, Gene Kamena in the 3-12 and Mike Jones in the 2-67 but you have to 

understand that Gene Kamena and his battalion had just come back from six months 

in Macedonia8

 and most of his people rotated. His tracks hadn’t had a service on 

them, surely the whole six months he had been gone plus the two or three months 

he was training up before he went. Mike Jones has been the pusher and the trainer 

for the 1st Armored Division, starting in April or May of last year. So he has 

been the observer controller, training and pushing the 1st Armored (Division). His 

headquarters is in Friedberg but he has located himself in Bad Kreuznach for the 

last two or three months because he was responsible for pushing the 1st Armored 

Division out. Thus, he had not pulled a service on his tanks since about June. We 

were trying to figure how we were going to do this. 

The other problem was that as we were getting units ready to go, we had to observe 

the requirement that units that were ALO1 would not go below P2 (Personnel level 

2). Units at ALO2 couldn’t go below P3, and units at ALO3 couldn’t go below P4. 

That didn’t hold true in most of the Task Force Eagle units other than some of 

the separate brigades. The 1st Brigade and 2d Brigade areas, I’ll give you some 

examples. Mike Jones in Friedberg had five tank companies. He had fifteen 

tanks out of the 1-1 Cavalry which had been moved from Budingen to Friedberg 

for maintenance, all fifteen were down. He had all of what were the float tanks 

in the brigade, they were all down and five of them were missing engines and 

transmissions. He had two rear detachment areas, Kirchgoens and Friedberg, 

to cover with his battalion. Kamena had two mech and two tank (companies). 

Subsequently, as we were training him up for gunnery and CMTC rotations, we 

took one of his mech companies away from him, dismounted them, brought them 

down to Taszar, and trained them as dismounts, and sent them down range as a 

security element. They are now in Bosnia as a light airmobile unit. Now, he’s 

down to two tank and one mech and we are supplementing him with all kinds of 

folks from TF Victory and 1st Armored Division so he can get through gunnery 

and go to CMTC. 

As you move all of the units out of the 1st Armored Division and as they close 

their ASLs and PLLs and package them up to put them on transportation, you start 

feeding off of what is left. That, of course, is the PLLs of the units that remain. 

So very rapidly, those PLLs go down almost to zero and that’s what happened to 

the PLLs in the 3-12 Infantry and 2-67 Armor. They were just used up. At the 

same time with the 1st Armored Division doing their stuff, the 3d COSCOM is 

also involved. 

We say that we have the USAREUR (Forward) and 21st TAACOM (Forward) 

down here in Taszar. What we really have is V Corps and 3d COSCOM. So while 
32

1st AD was deploying, the 3d COSCOM and the 19th CMMC were packing up to 

come down range. The COSCOM and Corps headquarters packed up and went 

to Hungary. Thus the 1st Armored Division was closing up its ASLs and moving 

and the 3d COSCOM was closing up and moving out. The backfill for the 3d 

COSCOM, Brigadier General Bruner9

 and his guys from Iowa and Minnesota10

didn’t come in until the end of December (1995). There was a real break there. 

As such, the people that were supposed to be doing things didn’t get them done. 

We found, as we got about half-way through this thing in mid-December and into 

January that the derivative DoDAACs hadn’t been done. Therefore, the stuff that 

was being ordered down range was arriving in Germany and things that were 

ordered in Germany were arriving in Hungary and Bosnia and by the way, the 7th 

Corps Support Group that supports the units in the rear can only support wheels, 

they have no track capability. 

So we had laid on this program with KIC that they were going to provide the 

tank and track capability both in parts and special tools for the 2-67 Armor, the 

3-12 Infantry, 5-3 ADA, and other folks that have tracks. About halfway through 

the deployment, sometime about late December, they came on line and said; “We 

can’t do that - made a mistake. Sorry, you guys have to find something else.” So 

what we had to do right quick was to set up a deal with the DISCOM of the 3d 

Infantry Division, now 1st Infantry Division. 

As we did that, we found that the 1st Armored and 3d Infantry Divisions were 

operating on different logistical systems. They don’t have the same interface and 

we could not interface between the two divisions. Therefore, we had to come up 

with a capability for the 2-67 and the 3-12 to request parts electronically. So after 

the KIC fell out, even though it had been all coordinated and we thought they 

were on board, the best thing we could do was drive requisitions from Kirchgoens, 

Friedberg, and Baumholder to Kitzingen, which is really not the way to do it. 

First, we had to get the DoDAAC thing squared away then we had to set up a 

requisitioning system that allowed the units to use electrons, rather than rubber, 

driving the roads. We got that done in quick order. The 1st ID came on real strong, 

they have a great DISCOM commander who picked up the load and did a super 

job. 

Then you look at how the battlefield is laid out. I am giving you this because it 

was one of the most difficult parts. What happens when an armored division picks 

up and leaves and it’s focused down here in theater and it focuses on deploying and 

implementing simultaneously? The division knows that it has to have certain things 

done by D+30, D+60, D+120, D+150, and D+180. It knows it has to separate the 

warring factions by D+30. It has to get all the heavy weapons out by D+60. It has 

to get those things into storage areas and get the units back into the casernes by 

another date. He’s focused on getting down here and getting on with it. 
33

So what happens when you leave? What do you leave behind? Do you leave 

your best equipment behind? What do you think? 

No, in fact, probably everything you leave behind is broken, right? But I’m not 

being critical, it just makes sense. 

Do you leave your very best planners and your very best staff officers or do you 

take them with you? You take them all with you. Do you try real hard to make 

sure that you have a capable person left in charge of the rear detachment? Yes, you 

do that but you don’t leave your SAMS11 graduates or your water walkers. All of 

them go down range.

How do you organize maintenance for what is left and what is left? In the 1st 

Armored Division, somewhere around six or seven hundred vehicles are still there 

and about 150 or 160 of them are excess and should have been turned in a year 

ago. They are excess because of TOE changes and other things. You have to look 

at where you have people. I’ll give you a number of examples.

 You have a PLL, a commander, and a maintenance platoon, or a support platoon 

in Baumholder with the 3-12 Infantry. You have a commander, a PLL, and a 

maintenance platoon at Friedberg with the 2-67 Armor. They also have MST that is 

split off from the DISCOM that provides a unit with a track maintenance capability. 

Those teams are supposed to have certain numbers of people in them and that 

number varies with the types of vehicles you have. In the 3-12, it was supposed to 

have 24 or 25, I think, in the MST. They had about twelve. The one in Kirchgoens 

was supposed to have 30 or 38. It had sixteen or seventeen. They were at about 

50 percent strength. As I talked to the DISCOM commander and the chief of staff 

and the commander of the task force, I said; “Come on guys, we’re not going to 

be able to get these guys through gunnery and all the other things unless we keep 

these MSTs up to strength.” They recognized that fact but they also had to get set 

up down in Hungary and Bosnia. They said that when the replacements came in, 

they would fill the MSTs and that would be in time to meet the requirements. I 

did not agree with that but I understood their concern with getting everything set 

up down here. You have two concentrations of maintenance capability left in the 

1st Armored Division in those two platoons. You have a smaller capability with 

the 5-3 ADA which came down with all their company commanders and battalion 

headquarters, leaving most of their vehicles in the Central Region. They came 

down to do a staff function. So if you look at 5-3 ADA, there is no battalion 

headquarters or company headquarters. One platoon from each battery remained 

behind with all the equipment and the rest of the battalion is gone and by the way, 

they had just deactivated Battery C and its equipment was still there. It had not 

yet been turned in. Between Bad Kreuznach and Dexheim, there are about 120 

vehicles. Who is in charge of them? Nobody. What is the maintenance setup? 

There is no maintenance setup. What about Hanau? What’s at Hanau? Well, 
34

there are three or four units at Hanau and Budingen is under Hanau. What’s there 

to support them? Well, there’s nothing there to support them. Who’s taking care 

of the vehicles? Nobody is taking care of the vehicles The same thing is true 

with the 18th MP Brigade. The 18th MPs brought the brigade headquarters and 

both battalion headquarters, leaving a company of each battalion behind to do the 

central region MP function until the National Guard units arrived from CONUS. 

What you have is an MP platoon in almost every little caserne. When they pulled 

out and had a broken vehicle, that broken vehicle just stayed there. So what you 

had, in almost every caserne, was a broken vehicle and nobody to take care of 

it. Now, you look at this thing and say; “How do you do this?” I tried to take 

all the units and rear detachments and organize them under one of the brigade 

headquarters that was left back in Germany. I had it all laid out. I had both the 

1st Armored Division and the separates set up that way. General Nash12 didn’t 

want to do that. He didn’t want his rear detachments and units under a supporting 

unit. He had Lieutenant Colonel Dyson13 as his rear detachment commander and 

wanted everything to come under Dyson. I argued that because I didn’t think it 

would work but I deferred to him and that’s how he set it up. I will tell you that 

on about the second day of the operation, I started bypassing Dyson because he 

did not have the staff or capability to do anything. I very rapidly, maybe the 

second day, worked directly with Dyson, the division rear detachment commander: 

Jones, the 1st Brigade rear detachment commander: Kamena, the 2d Brigade rear 

detachment commander, the DISCOM rear detachment commander, and the rear 

detachment commander of the 4th Brigade. I just went directly to each. I did take 

the separate brigades, which belonged to me, and developed a support relationship 

between the non-deployed brigades and the deployed brigades. Thus, everybody 

who deployed was organized under a brigade headquarters that had a staff, a 

maintenance capability, and a planning and execution capability. That worked out 

absolutely beautifully.

For example, I put the 18th MP (Brigade) under Colonel Robin Walker in the 

11th Aviation Brigade. That was the most difficult problem of all, because he 

had MP vehicles spread out all over the Central Region, most of them broken. 

What he did was ingenious. He took all of the platoons west of the Spessart and 

consolidated their broken vehicles at Wiesbaden. He took all of the platoons east 

of the Spessart and consolidated their broken vehicles at Ansbach. He consolidated 

people to work on the vehicles at those two places. His brigade has two battalions 

and he gave one of the battalions the responsibility for Wiesbaden and gave the 

other battalion the responsibility for Ansbach. In about a week and a half, he had 

every vehicle up. He did an outstanding job. Right now, if you look at the charts, 

you will see that the 18th MP Brigade left 30 or 40 vehicles back and that all of 

them were down. Two weeks later they still have 40 vehicles but all of them are 

up. He did an outstanding job. 
35

The other thing that we did that I think was the right thing to do, involved the 

30th Medical Brigade. Its leadership was down range but about half of its people 

were still back. I put them under the 7th Corps Support Group (under) Colonel 

Fred Perkins. 

They have vehicles spread all over the Central Region also and they had some 

maintenance problems. Fred Perkins got them fixed in short order. I put the 

engineers under the 69th ADA (Brigade). I put the 205th MI Brigade under the 

12th Aviation Brigade. I charged those brigade commanders and every time I had 

a meeting with the rear detachments and commanders, those commanders had to 

report to me on what they were doing to take care of maintenance and training.

Those battalion commanders spent a lot of time with the rear detachment folks 

to make sure they had what they needed. That worked out well but as you look at 

that and ask what was left back and look at Mike Jones, who was supposed to go to 

gunnery in April, and Gene Kamena, who was supposed to go to gunnery in May, 

we began seeing the dimensions of the problem. 

Jones sent me a letter saying that he hadn’t pulled a service since June and that 

it was going to take him until May just to get that done. He also pointed out that 

he had those fifteen non-operational tanks that 1-1 Cav didn’t take to Bosnia, five 

of which were missing engines and transmissions. He also said that the division 

traded out the non-operational float tanks with tanks from his battalion so that he 

now had the broken tanks on his TOE. 

There were some other things that went along with that. The battalion took 

float tanks without machine guns and radios and gave the division float tanks with 

machine guns and radios. So now they were trying to get the machine guns and 

radios back. Again, there is nothing evil or conniving here. It’s just a matter of 

trying to move an enormous force in a very short period of time and people trying 

to do the best they can. Nobody was trying to do anything wrong. In fact, as you 

start looking into it, you find that the engines and transmissions were in repair and 

the unit that had them in repair deployed, so they took them along. They sent them 

back and we put them in the tanks. This kind of thing happens when you try to 

organize and deploy on a very short notice. 

So what do you do? You have a limited maintenance capability at Friedberg 

and a limited maintenance capability at Baumholder, a maintenance capability in 

the separate brigades that didn’t deploy, and one wheel maintenance company left 

in the 7th CSG. So how do you fix that to take care of the 100 and something 

vehicles at Bad Kreuznach and Dexheim and all the vehicles at Hanau? How do 

you help Mike Jones get all his services pulled and get all those tanks back up, 

take care of the fifteen tanks from the 1-1 Cav, the broken tanks left from the float 
36

account, and get his five tank companies operational and ready to go? How do you 

do the same thing for Gene Kamena in the 3-12 Infantry? How do you turn in the 

excess? How do you organize and operate a supply system? 

I concluded that we had to get some help from the 1st Infantry Division, which 

didn’t look promising because they had a full plate also. The other alternative was 

to bring in a National Guard outfit. The problem was that we had the 7th Corps 

Support Group there and they have the capability to work on wheeled vehicles and 

don’t forget, by the way, that the 7th CSG was sending a company to Saudi Arabia 

in another month or so and was trying to get that company organized, pulling parts 

together for it. 

The issue was how to take care of the tracks. We looked at the National Guard 

capability. We talked to the 21st TAACOM; I spoke with General Wright14 a 

couple of times, and with General Lust15 at the USAREUR DCSLOG, trying to 

figure out if we could get a National Guard unit in. 

The only National Guard unit available was a general support unit, an assembly 

line type unit, so that wouldn’t work. Finally, Wright and I were talking and he 

mentioned that we had a contract down at Germersheim, an open-ended Lockheed 

contract, and suggested that we might be able to work something off of that. 

At that time, General Bruner and his unit were arriving to backfill the 3d 

COSCOM that was moving down to Hungary to fill the 21st TAACOM (Forward), 

so I got him working on that. They worked up a program and figured out that we 

could do this whole thing with three teams, one each at Friedberg, Baumholder, 

and Hanau. We looked at that, and considered the cost and the cost wasn’t bad, 

$1.6 million for three months, and then $1.8 million for the next three months. To 

get ahead of myself, when we did the first three months, it wound up costing $1.2 

million and the second three months was only going to be about $1 million. So 

the total cost for six months was only going to be about $2.2 million, instead of 

$3.5 million. The cost for parts to do all of those things was going to be about $3 

million. So for about $5 million, we could take care of the whole problem and I 

thought it was a great idea. If you look at the total money being spent on Task 

Force Eagle, it was remarkable. 

So we did that. We set that up, got Lockheed on it, the great thing about it was 

that they came on really fast. 

The first thing I did was ask what was left, what was still here, and what was the 

condition of the motor pools we had, how many vehicles were in them, whether 

they were operational or non-operational. That was the first time I really realized 

that I was going to have to bypass Dyson because Dyson didn’t have the foggiest 

and had no way, in the near term, of assessing it. 
37

In at least one instance, a major rear detachment changed in December, early 

January, right in the middle of this. It was in Hanau, and the rear detachment 

commander was yanked down to run the Tuzla airfield for the 4th Brigade and 

Major Dvorak16 came over to take his place. That’s when I found out that I was not 

going to be able to work with Dyson only and get all the data through him. That’s 

when I started bypassing him and started calling the commanders individually. 

The interesting part of it is that they didn’t know either. 

The first time I did a USR review was in January (1996) and they still didn’t 

have the foggiest. In fact, I had more data than they did and the way I got the 

data was by telling all the separate brigade commanders who were sponsors to go 

themselves or send their XOs or sergeants major to the motor pool of the unit they 

were supporting and do several things. 

I wanted them to assure me that the motor pools were secure and that the buildings 

inside the motor pool and any CONEXs left there were secure. I said that when 

they went down there, they needed to take along a pocket full of locks because if 

things were not secure, I wanted them secured. I wanted them to identify all the 

equipment left in the motor pools and the condition of that equipment. They would 

not be able to tell, in many cases, whether a vehicle would run or not but they could 

see immediately if a carburetor or battery was missing or something like that. It 

was a little bit more difficult on the divisional units because, as I mentioned to you, 

we didn’t have support brigades for those. 

About that time, General Bruner’s unit had arrived to backfill the COSCOM, so I 

sent his guys out to look at the 1st Armored Division. I had General Bruner check 

the separates, also. Then I went to Bob Chambless17 and told him I needed him to 

go through the motor pools with an emphasis on Task Force Eagle because I had 

already had the separates checked pretty closely. So I had a pretty good idea of 

what was left, how many vehicles were left, and what condition the vehicles were 

in. I knew how many were missing parts and I knew if any had been stripped. So 

I had a basis to start.

Thus, when we brought the Lockheed contract on, we put a team at Baumholder, 

a team at Friedberg, and a team at Hanau. 

Simultaneous with this, I was getting ready to manage the individual replacement 

flow, so I was personally going around to every rear detachment and going through 

with them, name by name, the people in the rear detachments, who was going 

to stay, who was going to go, and how we were going to handle it and naturally, 

while I was there, I looked at the motor pools and asked them who was responsible 

for the vehicles and how many they had. That’s how I found out that there were 

over 100 vehicles in the Baumholder and Dexheim area with nobody in charge of 

them. I split the team in Hanau, took a small team from Hanau and moved it to 
38

Bad Kreuznach to handle those vehicles that were in the Bad Kreuznach-Dexheim 

area. When we did that, we had pretty good coverage and started getting a good 

handle on it. I felt comfortable with the situation then. 

Initially, we didn’t know the situation with all the vehicles. In many cases, the 

vehicles were there but the unit grabbed the log book box when it deployed and 

that box also had the log books for the vehicles left behind. In some cases, not 

in all cases, we didn’t know the condition of the vehicles. We began with a 100 

percent TI (turn-in) and got parts on order, not on all vehicles now.

As I mentioned to you before, there were a lot of vehicles that weren’t being 

reported because they were excess. There were at least 34 HEMTTs in Kirchgoens 

from the 2-3 Field Artillery. There were 15 or 20 HEMTTs from C/5-3 ADA, just 

outside of Wiesbaden. There were 70 to 80 HMMWVs that were excess. Some of 

that existed because 1st Armored Division wanted to turn in its HMMWV training 

fleet. Each division had a 55 HMMWV training fleet but none of them were up. 

As we went through and looked at those, we found that almost every excess vehicle 

was down. So the first month and a half, we spent going through a TI on all the 

vehicles and ordering parts. Then parts started coming in and we spent the last 

month of that three month contract putting those parts on and you could just see a 

tremendous change in the operational readiness rate. 

We extended the contract three months, so this month, you will see that increase 

continue. The other thing you will see is this; we worked with the 21st TAACOM 

on the HEMTTs. There is a HEMTT rebuild program. What we are going to be 

able to do, even though we ordered and put on many of the parts that the HEMTTs 

needed, we found that there was a program that would enable us to turn in all the 

HEMTTs as they existed. We are in the process of doing that. 

Right now, we have two vehicles down over 90 days. You wouldn’t believe 

what we had before. Both of those vehicles are in the 2-67 Armor. We watch 

these things on a daily basis. At the moment, we only have one tank down. That’s 

in all of Task Force Victory. Remember, excess and ORF are not reported; only 

TOE vehicles are reported but we watch them all. The excess will be turned in 

sometime in early June. In fact, we have already ordered the transportation. They 

will be gone. 

Q. Sir, do you recall the size of the rear detachments that deal with all of this? 

A. Yes, 5,664. That doesn’t count non-deploying units, which add up to 8,000 

more. In the 3-12 Infantry and the 2-67 Armor, for example, there are 1,164 

soldiers. We developed a spread sheet that helps us keep track of people and, most 

important, the number of soldiers available to deploy. At the moment, that figure is 

565, after allowing for pregnancies, temporary profiles, medical holds, legal holds, 
39

schools, emergency leaves, some unusual OCIE requirement, and so on. There are 

almost 400 people in that category, and the figure has been as high as 500. So far, 

we have deployed 3,500 individuals down range that does not include units. Our 

data base allows us to track those manifested to depart in two weeks and the two 

weeks after that, as well as those currently in training at Hohenfels.

Q. Sir, how do you track those replacements to make sure that they match up with 

the required MOSs? 

A. We cannot track it by MOS. The AG (Adjutant General) does that. All we do is 

take the replacements that come in, train them up, and get them down range. The 

AG has to make sure that the proper MOS and proper grade gets assigned to the 

right unit. 

When we pick them up at Rhein-Main, they assign them to the division. Dyson 

does that, has an assistant G1 to do that. His AG takes the gains and assigns them 

against the shortages by grade and MOS. The AG does that work for the separates, 

and assigns the soldiers to the right units. If a replacement is (being) assigning to 

the 2-67 Armor, we won’t deploy him. If he is assigned to the 3-12 Infantry, he 

may not deploy but if he is assigned to the division headquarters or the DISCOM 

or one of the other tank units, he will probably deploy. Of all the replacements 

coming in, less than half of them go to the 1st Armored Division. About 30 percent 

go to 1st AD, 30 percent go to the 1st Infantry Division, and 40 percent go to all the 

separate brigades and other units. 

Q. The personnel charts you have shown me indicate that somewhere along the 

line, somebody (has) had to have made a decision not to implement stop loss, since 

the command continues with the normal personnel rotation.

A. Yes. It was decided before we came down here. We didn’t do a stop loss but 

we did cause a temporary halt in PCS moves for 90 days starting on 30 December 

(1995) or 1 January (1996). That was an Army decision. Everybody deploys. 

What that means, though, is that, starting on 1 April, you get twice as many 

people PCSing. That’s why you see seven or eight hundred people in these rear 

detachments for PCS and ETS. 

Q. Why then, the decision for 90 days instead of the duration of Operation JOINT 

ENDEAVOR? 

A. To get us down range. Because remember, I told you we delayed everybody 

for 90 days. Then we brought in the first month (which was January) three months’ 

worth of replacements. The delay gave us time to process, train, and get those 

soldiers into theater. Then the soldiers on delay could rotate. That worked well in 

some cases, in some cases it didn’t. 
40

The replacements started arriving in early January. But all of 1st Armored 

Division had not yet deployed and we still had significant 1st Armored Division 

units that were doing the CMTC mine training, checkpoint training - the mandatory 

training. 

Our problem at TF Victory was that we could not get enough CMTC slots in 

January and early February. So the guys we had hoped to train in January and start 

moving down range in February couldn’t even start training until the middle of 

February. So we really didn’t start getting replacements down range until March. 

Not a big deal, because the first PCSs don’t start rotating back until 1 April. 

The extension was for 90 days, not until 1 April. If you were to rotate on 1 

January, then you moved on 1 April, if you were to PCS on 30 January, it became 

30 April. Everybody didn’t rotate on 1 April. So if we got the people started in 

during March, we were OK and I think we were. I think the Corps commander is 

concerned the individual replacement flow is too slow. 

The problem was CMTC rotations and we got a lot of people in who just weren’t 

deployable. Now, you might say that when somebody arrives in country that has 

just been through a POM to come to USAREUR, you should just be able to send 

them right on down range. You can deploy to USAREUR pregnant, but you can’t 

go to Bosnia pregnant. They are deploying people to USAREUR with temporary 

profiles. You can send them down range with a temporary profile but only after you 

put the soldier through an evaluation. So it isn’t a “bring ‘em in, run ‘em through 

a school, and send ‘em down range.” Not for all of them, most of them, we did 

some 3,500 soldiers but we have 1,100 still left and about 500 of those soldiers, we 

can’t deploy for a variety of different reasons. A total of 375 of them are because 

of pregnancies, temporary profiles becoming permanent profiles, physical and 

medical evaluation boards, temporary profiles, courts, boards, and courts martial. 

That figure has fluctuated between 375 and 500. 

Q. It seems then, sir, that the Army was really backfilling USAREUR as a command 

and not necessarily JOINT ENDEAVOR. 

A. That’s correct. All the replacements that came into USAREUR did not go to 

JOINT ENDEAVOR. About 5,000 replacements came in to USAREUR. The 

Corps got, I think, about 4,000 of those. Of that 4,000 that came to the Corps, as a 

percentage, about 40 percent went to the 1st Armored Division. Of that, 40 percent 

that went to the 1st Armored Division, only 88 percent went down range. So when 

all was said and done, for Task Force Eagle, which is 1st Armored Division and 

all the separates down there, got about 1,800 to 2,000 out of that group of 5,000 

replacements. In fact, it was about 30 percent. 

We tracked these figures every month, the people projected in, and where they 

were intended to go. Then we track those that actually arrive. In the month of 
41

May for example, 733 were projected in and 353 have arrived and this is the end 

of May! You can see that they aren’t all coming in.

We have been running about 300 or 400 short every month, across the board. 

We probably get an average of 400 or 450 out of around 700 projected gains. Our 

MSTs are averaging about 70 percent of authorized strength. At 70 percent, it’s 

tough to get the battalions prepped to go to CMTC. We have also tracked every 

soldier who has returned to Central Region for a medical reason, by name. We 

probably have the best data base in the Central Region on replacements. 

We had a number of temporary profiles; they were going from temporary to 

permanent. We kept asking the questions and obviously the rear detachments 

didn’t understand the system. The profiles were going permanent and nobody was 

doing anything. We got them all out in the open and found out who was making 

those determinations; it was the general court martial convening authority. Now 

we have a great program to track who has gone from a temporary to a permanent 

profile and then taking action, getting the soldier before a MMRB within 30 days. 

Then we move on to a medical evaluation board and so on. Right now, we’re 

tracking 132 of these cases. 

Legal status...I am not interested in who is getting a court martial. I am interested 

in where this is all taking place and how long it’s taking because my interest is to 

make sure that one legal center doesn’t get inundated. When that happens, we 

leave a whole bunch of bad eggs in one place for too long because they are just not 

organized to deal with the situation. 

We have to keep track of where, in general, the work load is and how long it’s 

taking them to get through that work load so that we can shift capabilities if we 

need to, to make sure that nobody falls behind. You notice that our charts don’t 

display names or punishments. It’s a matter of workload. The chart shows a list of 

communities that have legal representation. Across the top is the type of actions 

that are pending. No names. I go to great lengths to make sure that there is no 

impression of influence. The only thing I am doing with this thing is making sure 

that one of the legal centers doesn’t get inundated. This monitors the workload 

placed on the JAG officers and verifies that no action is pending for an inordinate 

amount of time because of an imbalance in workload. 

This business is so complex and so confusing, that unless you follow it every 

day, you can’t keep track of it daily. The Corps commander does not have time to 

track it. If you are not watching it, you can’t understand it. We try to get all of the 

information that impacts on us and keep it up to date but none of these numbers 

make any sense alone. You have to put them together: TF Eagle, USAREUR 

(Forward), 21st TAACOM, TF Victory, and so on. You also have to distinguish 

whether you are talking about the numbers for pure units or for task forces, brigade 

combat teams, or communities. 
42

In Task Force Victory, I talk about the 1st BCT and the Kirchgoens and Friedberg 

community. So when I talk to Mike Jones, I talk about the 2-3 Field Artillery, 

the 501st FSB, (and) the 23d Engineers. (It’s) the same thing with Gene Kamena 

but you can also look at it another way, as the 1st Brigade, and the figures show 

the total authorization for 1st Brigade, for all units assigned to that brigade. At 

the moment, he’s at 105% of authorization but has 97% down range. The total 

authorized in Bosnia is 2,093. Eight percent of the total is in the rear detachment. 

Who are they? I’ll guarantee you that there are eight percent of the people who are 

PCSing and ETSing. 

Here’s an important figure: the Corps commander directed that units deployed 

for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR be maintained at P1, which is 90 percent. 

To give ourselves some room to maneuver, we decided to establish a manning 

figure of 92 percent. Therefore, the base strength figure for units deployed for this 

operation is 92 percent of authorized and that is reflected in all the strength figures 

we maintain and helps to drive the replacement flow. Given the requirements for R 

& R and other reasons soldiers might be absent from their units, a commander has 

to have 105 percent of his authorized strength on the ground in order to maintain 

an operating figure of 92 percent of deployed authorized. At the moment, only the 

medical brigade is really at P1; they’re all close, just a percentage point or two but 

only the medical brigade is really there. 

This business is dynamic and it keeps the TF Victory G-1 busy. The 1st Armored 

Division DISCOM is short at the moment. I’m not making judgments but because 

of demographics, units such as this one will characteristically have the most nondeployable soldiers. They have the most pregnancies because the medical brigade, 

the FSBs and MSBs and the DISCOM, in support units in general, have the 

highest density of female soldiers. We know for a fact that only female soldiers get 

pregnant, we haven’t found any exceptions to that rule yet. Those units will also, 

for some reason, have the highest percentage of non-deployables due to physical 

profile limitations and pending medical boards. 

Q. Initially, sir, the plan was to deploy 100 replacements per day to Bosnia. What 

happened with that? 

A. That was impossible to meet. You’ll remember that I told you earlier, that we 

had 5,000 soldiers come in, of which 1,800 were going to report down range. We 

were going to get those 1,800 in and get them trained up in 30 days. 

We thought we could get 100 a day down range. Two things really killed us. The 

first was CMTC. We had programmed CMTC to get these folks through. In the 

mid-January to late-February period, USEUCOM and USAREUR were training 

people to send them down here and that was not programmed and forecast. We 

were supposed to get 70 to 80 seats per class. I was getting 10 to 30 seats per class. 
43

Finally, I had to go up and sit with the DCSOPS and Casey18 and the G-3 guys and 

say; “You’re killing me.” We would get preempted. They would take classes away 

for various teams coming in from everywhere, a lot of it having nothing whatever 

to do with Task Force Eagle but they were taking CMTC seats. That was the key 

that delayed us. We were sending soldiers down there based on how they were 

coming out of CMTC and it wasn’t 100 a day. 

The other thing that killed us was OCIE. The folks came down here and 

supposedly before they left the central region, they were 100 percent on OCIE. 

When they got down here, we found that they didn‘t have 100 percent of their 

OCIE. So General Kindred19 and the Corps commander determined that we had to 

fix this before we sent the soldiers on into Bosnia. 

We sent a lot of the OCIE from Central Region down to Hungary. That meant 

that there wasn’t enough OCIE in Central Region to outfit all the soldiers coming 

in. Then, of course, the ASGs weren’t involved. They weren’t interested. The 

guys who were running this were Mike Jones, Gene Kamena, and the commanders 

of the rear detachments and support units. They found that the CIFs didn’t have 

boots or other things. The soldiers couldn’t deploy without that equipment. We 

directed that TF Victory immediately send trucks around to the various CIFs to 

pick OCIE up, sign for it, and redistribute it to CIFs as required. 

We immediately got General Lust involved. He and I had three or four 

conversations and he finally got a handle on it but those two things delayed us 

significantly. We got 100 people down range a couple of times but in general, 

through that first 2,000, we were only getting 50 to 70 down range per day. Now 

we have leveled out at around 20 to 40 per day but that was not a big deal whether 

we had 100 or not or 50 or 70. 

The big deal was that we got those 2,000 soldiers down range before the people 

they were replacing rotated. The soldiers they were to replace are just leaving 

now, through June. The first one PCSed or ETSed on 1 April, the last one will go 

on 30 June but you can see we were well past the 2,000. We are up to about 3,500 

replacements into theater. Don’t get me wrong, personnel replacements have had 

zero impact on the operation. The thing that has caused a lot of problems is that 

there are perceptions across the Army that they were sending soldiers. You have 

to remember that the accelerated individual replacements we had for January, 

February, and March, all of them arriving in January, came from other units in 

CONUS. We were pulling those guys in 60 to 90 days early. CONUS was seeing 

5,000 people leaving for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR but then they never saw 

5,000 people getting down there to JOINT ENDEAVOR. Only 2,000 got there but 

5,000 people were never going to JOINT ENDEAVOR. Five thousand soldiers 

were going to USAREUR. What would have happened if we had sent 5,000 

soldiers to JOINT ENDEAVOR? 
44

Some MOS would have been at 200 percent. When, after a year down here, they 

went back to Central Region, we would have had a duffel bag drag that we could 

not have supported. 

Picture the 1st Armored Division at 250 percent of 1lBs or l1Ms, while 1st Infantry 

Division is at 50 percent. How do you do that? How do you manage that against 

PCS moves? If we had given 5,000 soldiers to 1st Armored Division, we would 

have created a three-year problem that we couldn’t have fixed. So everybody here, 

the people who were doing replacements, knew that 5,000 people were coming 

in but that they all weren’t for 1st Armored Division. They were for all of the 

major subordinate commands. Only somewhere between two and three thousand 

of those soldiers were for Task Force Victory, Task Force Eagle, and the separates. 

Only about 79 percent of those would go down range. So you figure of the 5,000, 

only about 3,500 are going to come to the Corps and of that number, only about 

2,000 are going to go down range and they are not only for 1st Armored Division 

but also for 22d Signal Brigade, 205th MI Brigade, 130th Engineer Brigade, and 

all the rest. That was a problem that a lot of people had. “When are those 5,000 

people going to get down range? They arrived in January!” Never! Only 2,000 of 

them went to units that had deployed but everybody got that 5,000 in their heads. 

We never were supposed to deploy 5,000. In January, February, and March, we 

were supposed to deploy 1,800 and you explain that to people many, many times. 

For some reason, they either can’t understand or don’t want to understand and keep 

asking the same questions over and over again. 

Q. Sir, with all of this going on, why is this headquarters called USAREUR 

(Forward), instead of V Corps (Forward)? 

A. I don’t know. I think it probably has to do with sensibilities. This is a logistical 

headquarters. We looked at making the headquarters Seventh Army, which is the 

old Central Region theater army that supported CENTAG. The 21st TAACOM 

is a support headquarters. I think it was to give it the name that more accurately 

described what it did, which is a theater army function, rather than a field army 

function. V Corps is a combat headquarters. It did not come down here to do a 

combat mission but to do the USAREUR mission of support. So we called it what 

it was, so people would not get confused. 

Q. Sir, you have the National Support Element (NSE) that is within USAREUR 

(Forward). Is General Kindred also the DCSLOG (Deputy Chief of Staff-Logistics) 

of USAREUR (Forward)? How does that work? 

A. No. He is the deputy commander, 21st TAACOM (Forward). General Wright 

is the commander of 21st TAACOM. 

Q. Since this is an Admin/Log relationship, how does this all tie in with the 

COMMZ (Communications Zone) and the COMMZ commander of NATO? I 
45

would think that, if you are using the doctrinal structure of the theater army, it 

would have to be tied in to the COMMZ somehow.

A. It is. We coordinate. 

Q. Is there any command relationship? 

A. No command relationship at all. Logistics is a national function. COMMZ is a 

NATO organization. We pass through the COMMZ area which is Croatia, and we 

coordinate with COMMZ when we do that. 

Q. Is that the reason that the ISB (Intermediate Staging Base) is outside the JOINT 

ENDEAVOR Area of Operations? 

A. No. It wasn’t put here because of that. In fact, the first place that we looked 

at to put the ISB was in Slavonski Brod or in the environs of Slavonski Brod. We 

looked at Zagreb. We looked at Belgrade. We looked at Pecs and we looked at 

here. We finally settled on this location for a number of reasons. The first reason 

was that it had the transportation nodes that we needed. Pecs and Slavonski Brod 

had good rail and good ground. Neither one of them had air. This place has a C-5 

capable airfield, good rail terminals, and also a good road network. So that’s why 

we picked this place over Pecs and Slavonski Brod. 

Some other things affected the decision. You would like to have the ISB fairly 

close to the AOR and it is. We are within 200 kilometers of the AOR. You would 

like to have it in a secure base and it is. Hungary is a very secure base, so we don’t 

have to spend a whole lot of time worried about force protection in general. The 

Hungarians have the responsibility for the overall security. Of course, we guard 

our gates and entrances. 

There were many other things. Fighter management. You have to be able to 

train people. Three or four thousand people are going to rotate out of here, just the 

individual replacements. If you look at the statistics, we are going to have about 80 

percent of the people here 180 days but less than 44 percent will stay here 270 days. 

You can see the turnover. How do you re-form tank crews and Bradley crews and 

air crews? Where do you train them? Where do you go through Table VIII? Where 

can you get a range? The range here is a great tank and Bradley range and it’s not 

very far from Budapest, so we can do a little crew rest and recuperation. You can 

bring soldiers in here, change out OCIE, replace equipment worn and broken in 

operations. You can send them to a good gunnery range and run them through tank 

and Bradley Table VIII. You can refresher train on individual weapons. After that, 

you can send them up to Budapest for a couple of days and let them relax. Then 

we bring them back through here and send them down range. 

One of the questions you didn’t ask is why you even have an ISB. You have to 

look at how you deploy. A unit just can’t deploy itself and simultaneously start 
46

implementing. You can’t pile all this stuff into a place that doesn’t have any base. 

What we had planned to do, of course, was bring the logistics capability in, bring 

the LOC (logistics operations center) opening forces in, and then bring the forces 

in. 

Because delays caused by the French rail strike, the flooding of the river, the 

snow, the ice, and all the other things, we had to change deployment scheduling 

to get the combat forces in. One of the things that gave us the capability to do 

that was the C-17 aircraft. It gave us great flexibility to adjust to the changing 

requirements but this place gives us a lot of other things too. It gives us a skilled 

work force. It gives us a capability to buy volumes of petrol, food, and the other 

commodities that we need. That’s why we’re here. 

Q. Sir, there is one issue that soldiers are talking about, almost a “we-they” thing. 

The soldiers down here don’t get the same tax break that the soldiers down south 

of the Drava River get.20 They are here on a one year deployment in support of a 

NATO operation but they are not getting the recognition, from their perspective. 

What are we doing as a command to try to resolve those kinds of things? 

A. You’re asking a guy who doesn’t know the answer to the question because I 

wasn’t here when the decision was being made. I can just tell you what I think 

I know. I was back in the rear with Task Force Victory at that time. I think that 

the decision was made by the Secretary of Defense. I don’t know exactly why 

Hungary was left out. I know that there is work going on to try to get these soldiers 

integrated. Everybody who comes through here, we talk to about this. Obviously, 

the soldiers mention it when they get the chance. I think it absolutely should be 

done and you are only talking about a very small part of the force, between 2,800 

and 3,600 folks here at any one time, while there are 18,000 to 20,000 down there 

in Bosnia. There’s another six or seven hundred in Macedonia. Am I for it? Yes. 

I think it’s fair. I don’t know what was presented to the Secretary of Defense to 

make his decision and I don’t know if it’s going to change. We will try to get it 

changed for the soldiers here. 

Q. Sir, USAREUR (Forward) seems to be a doctrinal headquarters in some cases 

and in some cases a non-doctrinal headquarters, it’s an ad hoc headquarters...

A. I don’t know if it’s an ad hoc headquarters or not. We did something similar to 

this in Exercise ATLANTIC RESOLVE 94. But go ahead and finish your question. 

Q. ...generally, the question is why we need a USAREUR (Forward) specifically. 

Why not just take a national support element which is your national chain, put 

it under the NATO COMMZ commander, but still have the flow go through the 

national support element for Title 10? 
47

A. There are too many other things going on in addition to that. There is a lot of 

policy formulation here that is over and above sending 88,000 liters of water or 

100,000 liters of gas down range. The national support element obviously can do 

those logistical things.

Back when we were setting these things up, a decision was made, by the CINC

obviously, that we needed a forward headquarters. That forward headquarters 

needed to be able to do certain things and be populated by a certain rank and 

structure. If you look at the ranges, the R & R, force protection, and all the other 

things that go along with fighter management, it is probably outside of the scope of 

a NSE as you were just describing it. The NSE as I am describing it that has not 

only the NSE and 21st TAACOM (Forward) but also the USAREUR (Forward) 

can do a number of other things, as opposed to just logistical sustainment. You 

know, there is a whole lot of planning going on; deployment, sustainment, training, 

R & R, and also for redeployment. You also have interface with the Hungarian 

government. 

There are a lot of issues related to contracting and the environment and money. 

If you look at the size of this thing, it kind of gets outside of the scope and volume 

of what you can do with just an NSE of the 21st TAACOM (Forward) run by a 

brigadier general. You say, well, the British and the French, and the Germans, 

especially, don’t have that rank structure...but look at what the Germans are doing! 

Given the requirements and the force structure that the Germans have, we can 

probably do it with a lieutenant colonel. If you give us the force structure and 

some other things that the British and French have, you have to remember that 

the Multi-National Division North is the same size as the other two combined. 

We are trying our best to make sure that we don’t draw any parallels between this 

and Berlin but that was actually the same there, too. If you took the British and 

the French contingents and added them together, we were as big as the other two, 

combined. 

The same is true here. 

Q. I understand that we are the major contributor here and therefore have 

responsibilities that the other nations don’t have. My other question is your 

assessment of your role as deputy commander here. 

A. It seems that everything that we have been planning (for) came to fruition after 

I got here, after about 24 March (1996). 

Starting in April, a bunch of things started happening. We opened the Taborfalva 

Complex. We opened the R & R program in Budapest and the LSA (life support 

area). We opened a beer tent in the LSA. We started the out of country and out 

of sector R & R program. We started the rotation of National Guard and reserve 
48

units. We redeployed the 502d Engineer Company to Central Region, that’s the 

one that put the first bridge across the Sava (River). We just pulled the 586th

Assault Float Bridge Company off of the Sava. 

Q. What kind of planning is USAREUR (Forward) doing for redeployment? 

A. There is no planning for redeployment being done at USAREUR (Forward). 

We sent the planners back to V Corps Main, and it is being done there. The plan 

has to be coordinated with USAREUR and USEUCOM and all the others. The 

detailed planning is being done in the Corps Main. Of course, we are in-putting to 

that, doing a number of FAAs (functional area assessment) on the functional areas 

of sustainment, and on redeployment. 

Q. One last question, sir. Could you talk about the changes that have had to be 

made in Title 10? 

A. Yes. USAREUR (Forward) has Title 10 responsibility for the entire theater. 

Initially, when the Corps commander set that up, General Nash handled Title 10 for 

the US soldiers in the Task Force Eagle sector, which is a multi-national division 

sector. General Kindred, the 21st TAACOM (Forward) commander, handled it 

for everything outside of Eagle’s sector in Bosnia and for eastern Croatia and for 

Hungary. The 7th Signal Brigade handled it for Zagreb and south (of) Zagreb 

(including) Split (and) Ploce. The 7th Signal redeployed just recently and we 

realigned that, giving the total requirement for everything outside of the Task Force 

Eagle AOR to General Kindred and the 21st TAACOM (Forward). He already had 

most of it, anyway. The way he does that in Sarajevo is that the USAREUR LNO 

(liaison officer) to IFOR, Colonel Gay,21 is responsible for Title 10 in Zagreb and 

Sarajevo. For eastern Croatia, Task Force Slavonski Brod is still handling that. 

We have a colonel at TF Slavonski Brod who manages Title 10 for eastern Croatia, 

from Slavonski Brod east and north. We are about to pick up additional Title 10 in 

Croatia. In fact, it is Sector East in Croatia. Some Americans are assigned to the 

UN force that is involved in demilitarizing Sector East. Right now, I think there 

are about 10 Americans in that and I think the UN has asked for some more civil 

affairs folks. The rumors say that the number will go up to 40 or 50. We’ll pick 

that up. 

Q. For the record, sir, what, specifically, is under Title 10 for Operation JOINT 

ENDEAVOR? 

A. Let’s see, (there is) legal, pay, housing, food, water, transportation, personnel 

services, religious services, commissary, PX (Post Exchange), force protection. 

To wrap up, I’d just like to say that we are about five and a half or six months 

into this operation. I have told you what I have seen from the training perspective 

at Grafenwoehr, how Task Force Victory came to be conceived and implemented, 
49

what we did in TF Victory, and what I saw after I came down here as the Forward 

commander. Everything I have told you was not meant to be critical. Some of the 

things that I mentioned earlier about the rear detachments and maintenance might 

seem so, but it is not. I don’t think that I, or anybody else, could have done it any 

better based on where we started and what our perceptions were at the time. 

Now, if you let me go back and do it again, I can do it a whole lot better but 

starting from where we started from, I don’t think we could have done better. The 

only thing that I wish I could have done is that I wish we could have determined 

and foreseen the Task Force Victory requirement earlier so that I could have spent 

more time with General Nash in coordinating and setting up what would be left 

in the rear and how we were going to maintain that and how we were going to 

transition the supply and maintenance aspects. 

What happened was that Bill Nash and the ADCs (assistant division commanders) 

were already down range and the chief of staff, Colonel John Brown, was just about 

to leave in the next couple of days. The DISCOM (division support command) 

commander was due to leave a week after that, when I was setting up TF Victory. 

All I was able to do was work with the DISCOM commander to set up the MSTs 

(maintenance support team) and I didn’t get a good solution on that. 

To make a long story short, don’t take anything I said as critical. What we have 

is a good news story. We demonstrated the ability of the United States Army to put 

an operation together, move very rapidly, and the flexibility to take care of things 

as they arise. I would say that our ability to recognize a problem and do whatever 

was needed to fix it, is one of our great capabilities. 

Notes

1. Brigadier Gen Robert E. Brady, Dental Corps, was the last commander of the 7th 

Medical Command. When the 30th Medical Brigade was activated, it was under command 

of Colonel Thomas I. Clements, Medical Corps.

2. In the process of reducing the Army by one division, the Department of the Army 

decided to retain the 1st Infantry Division, then at Fort Riley, Kansas, and the 3d Infantry 

Division, then at Wurzberg, Germany, on active duty, while inactivating the 24th Division 

at Fort Stewart, Georgia. In a series of reflagging actions, the 3d Infantry Division moved 

to Fort Stewart, while the 1st Infantry Division replaced it at Wurzberg, a process that was 

completed in February 1996.

3. Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wynarsky, Chief of Staff of V Corps Artillery, serving as 

Chief of Staff, Task Force Victory.

4. The 6th Battalion, 52nd Air Defense Artillery, for Operation PROVIDE COVER.

5. The headquarters of the US Army Office of the Program Manager, Saudi Arabian 

National Guard Modernization Program (OPM-SANG), in Riyadh, was bombed by 

terrorists on 13 November 1995.
50

6. Allied Mobile Force, Land/National Support Element. That company is assigned to 

the Special Troops Battalion, 3d COSCOM.

7. NATO Exercise ADVENTURE EXPRESS

8. The battalion had been assigned for six months to Operation ABLE SENTRY, the 

United Nations Preventive Deployment along the border between Macedonia and Serbia. 

Battalions from V Corps began rotating through that assignment in January 1995.

9. Brigadier General Thomas J. Bruner, Commanding General, 3d Corps Support 

Command (CONUS Augmentation).

10. Colonel Arthur A Hubbard, Commander, 19th Corps Maintenance Management 

Center (CONUS Augmentation).

11. School of Advanced Military Studies, the “second year” course at the US Army 

Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Attendance is by 

selection and graduates are normally assigned directly to the plans sections of division and 

Corps staffs.

12. Major General William Nash, Commanding General, 1st Armored Division and Task 

Force Eagle.

13. Lieutenant Colonel Gregory J Dyson, who had just relinquished command of 

the 410th Base Support Battalion, was in December 1995 designated Rear Detachment 

Commander for the 1st Armored Division.

14. Major General James Wright, Commanding General, 21st Theater Army Area 

Command in Kaiserslautern.

15. Brigadier General Larry J. Lust, Deputy Chief of Staff, Logistics, US Army, Europe 

and Seventh Army.

16. Major Thomas J Dvorak, Rear Detachment Commander, 4th Brigade, 1st Armored 

Division.

17. Colonel Robert Chambless moved from the command of 41st Field Artillery Brigade, 

an element of V Corps Artillery, to serve as the V Corps Inspector General. During the 

deployment, he also periodically served as acting Chief of Staff for the Corps headquarters.

18. Brigadier General George W. Casey, Jr., Chief of Staff, V Corps; subsequently Acting 

Deputy Commander USAREUR (Forward).

19. Brigadier General Samuel Kindred, Commanding General, 3d Corps Support 

Command, and Commanding General, 21st Theater Army Area Command (Forward), for 

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

20. The Drava River forms much of the boundary between Hungary to the north and 

Croatia to the south. Bosnia-Herzegovina is south and east of Croatia.

21. Colonel Mark Gay, V Corps Deputy Chief of Staff.
51

Interview with Major General William L. Nash, Commanding 

General, 1st Armored Division and Commanding General,

Task Force Eagle, Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Lieutenant Colonel David Fastabend, Center for Army 

Lessons Learned; Major Nels Dolan, 102d Military History Detachment; 

and Major Edward Gaumer, Center for Army Lessons Learned, 26 May 

1996, at Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. Sir, I’ve always been intrigued about your 

conversation about transfer of authority on or about 20 December (1995) when 

you decided to move out and take your trip up to the Sava River. Would you talk 

about that and what was on your mind when you did that? 

Major General Nash. Well, I got down here late on the 18th of December, just 

about midnight. 

So, it was the 18th, 19th of December. We figured out where we were and what 

was going on. Got some rest and then spent the 19th talking to a number of folks 

around here, trying to get the situational awareness, where we stood on the ground. 

I knew the status for deployment but I didn’t know the status of our actual 

situation here on the ground and the arrangements with respect to taking over 

from the UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Forces) folks up here in Sector 

Northeast. 

One of the things that became clear was, contrary to our initial discussions, the 

Norwegian general who was up here was not interested in hanging around. He 

was quite anxious to depart. So, looked through stuff and then, at the same time 

became aware of assets of the JCOs (Joint Commission Officer) who were present 

in the area. 

So I, just kind of thinking it through, went to try to establish early contact. 

I decided the best thing I could do after the change of authority was to go see 

representatives from the former warring factions, particularly those that concerned 

what I considered the key area and I had met two of the three folks concerned with 

that before. 

On a recon trip in November, I had met with Brigadier (Rasim) Delic, the Second 

Bosnian Corps Commander, and briefly with General Simic, the VRS (Army of 

Republika Srpska) East Bosnia Corps commander. So I went through an effort 

to meet two of them and at the same time made contact with a General named 

Matuzovic, who was the Croat commander in the Orasje Pocket. 

This gave me an opportunity to do a couple of things early on after taking 

responsibility for the area. One, make contact with two folks I had met before but 
52

now meet them under different circumstances. Number two, the guy, Matuzovic, 

get to see him, the Croat player in the Orasje Pocket. It gave me chance to look 

at routes Skoda/Arizona, the route that the division was going to use to move into 

the area. 

It gave me a chance to get up there to the Sava River from the south side. I 

earlier sent (Colonel) Greg Fontenot, the 1st Brigade Commander, to take charge 

of all forces gathering north of (word missing). He’d been reinforced by Brigadier 

General Pat O’Neal who was taking control of all the support elements to brief the 

engineers. 

So, once we put this plan together and had a quick change of authority ceremony 

at about 0900, (we) departed at 0930, stopped in Tuzla to see the Bosnian, drove 

north on Arizona to go see the Serbian, and then continued after that to see the 

Croat. 

I called O’Neal and Fontenot and told them to take the civilian ferry across the 

Sava River and meet me in Orasje. I think I said 1600 or 1500 that afternoon. We 

talked about the river crossing to make it clear that here come the Americans, here 

comes IFOR (Implementation Forces) and it turned out very well. I had been very 

subdued with those first two commanders when I first met them in November but 

on the day I was in charge, we pulled up in a convoy of four HMMWVs. (We) 

had a couple of weapons, had crew-served weapons on two of the vehicles and we 

jumped in the HMMWVs and took off and went and saw Bosnia. 

(I) told them now I was here and I was in charge of IFOR forces in the north. I had 

a little bit of combat power here but had a whole lot more coming. Contrary to our 

first visit, we now knew what the Dayton Peace Accord said, what responsibilities 

they and I had, and I’ll look forward to great cooperation. 

We talked for about 30 or 45 minutes with the Bosnian, got on the road, drove up 

route Arizona to the confrontation line, crossed the confrontation line, (and were) 

met there by the Serbs. The VRS Corps commander jumped in the HMMWV with 

me and proudly announced that I was on Route Arizona, that he knew it was Route 

Arizona. We had a good laugh about that and we went up the road about five or 

10 klicks (kilometers) over to a little town to the west of Route Arizona to have a 

meeting and lunch. 

It was a very good lunch there (and we) had a good meeting as well. From 

there, we went up across the confrontation line. Again, there were some Danish 

tanks there where we’d moved up the road to secure the route. (It was the) first 

time the tanks had been across the zones of confrontation. I went in and met 

with Matuzovic and about halfway through the Matuzovich meeting, Fontenot and 

O’Neal showed up. 
53

I went outside and talked to them a little bit, kind of coordinated about the river, 

decided we knew how to do this. (We) turned around and drove back to Tuzla. 

What it gave to us was the initiative, in my judgment. It showed all factions 

that we were very interested in our job, which we were going to be aggressive in 

execution of our mission. It gave me a first-hand look at that road we were going 

to use for the division. It gave me a first-hand look at the river. It gave me a firsthand look at the personalities we were to work with next year.

Interestingly enough, Mike Jackson,1

 the commander of the 3d UK Division 

did about the same thing, only he used a helicopter to fly to Banja Luka to meet 

with his Serb Corps commander and I think the combination of his actions and 

my actions spread the word to all the factions throughout the country that NATO, 

that IFOR, Americans, Brits, and French (who were doing similar things down in 

Sarajevo) that we were here to do our job. We didn’t have a problem with that. 

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. What words would you like to offer on the 

challenges of simultaneous employment in and deployment? 

Major General Nash. Well, as we’ve talked about before, the high event, the high 

number of tasks to be conducted during the D + 30 period meant that we had to get 

right to work on the peace treaty. 

The critical event was the separation of the forces by two kilometers on either 

side of what had gone from the confrontation line to the ceasefire line and to get 

those armies moved back. The only way you can do that was establish presence and 

in conjunction with all that, clearly demonstrate the right of freedom of movement 

of IFOR throughout the country. 

So it was important that we get forces moving and where appropriate, crossing 

the confrontation line to show everybody that we intended to exercise that right of 

freedom of movement throughout. So, the need to go everywhere, for freedom of 

movement, the need to establish conditions of the parties so they would willingly 

separate, usually involved placing forces between them. 

It called for a lot of action; of course, we had very few soldiers here at the 

time, very few forces. (The) key was the elements of the 325th Airborne Infantry 

arriving in Tuzla and they were taking control and establishing the protection of 

Tuzla Airbase which came to be known as Eagle Base.

The Swedish Battalion that diverted from UNPROFOR to IFOR was crucial to 

our actions and they have performed great services throughout the northern half 

of our area and in what are now the Nordic, US, and Russian Sectors to maintain 

presence. 
54

Then we used MP (Military Police) patrols as they arrived. As you know, we 

didn’t cross the river until the 30th (December 1995), somebody check the date. I 

can’t remember if we crossed the 30th or the 31st. It was one of them (sic) days. 

I think it was the 31st. 

Major Dolan. It was the 31st. 

Major General Nash. Anyway, so from the 20th to the 30th, we had a lot to do 

because it was 1/3d of our time until D + 30. 

We ferried some Bradleys across the river to take over the checkpoint where 

Route Arizona comes out of the Orasje Pocket into the Serbian portion of the 

Posavina Corridor. We got a few helicopters down here to start flying them around 

as we could. I continued the process of going out and meeting with various 

commanders, senior commanders, of the former warring factions.

So, as we got the bridge in on the 31st, it became very important to get the forces 

that came across the bridge right to work. With priority to Posavina Corridor area, 

both north and south, both the northern and southern confrontation lines. 

We brought (Colonel) John Batiste in with very few resources,2

 gave him the 

infantry company that we’d air-flown in, the mech infantry company that we’d 

flown in, and moved him south. He went south and established a base, started 

going out doing the same thing with civil affairs folks, psyops (Psychological 

operations)3

 folks, all were airlifted in there, also that one infantry company in 

order to get presence on the ground for the maximum part. 

As we started to come in and we were able to shift the Swedes back in to cover 

the Nordic section, the Nordic Brigade area, the Turks had our area which they 

were working. 

At one point, we brought a battalion commander and a scout platoon from two 

different battalions well ahead of the advance of their main body forces and put 

them into their areas so they could start working. 

Then, we’d fill in with forces as they crossed the river, both 1-1 Cav (Cavalry) 

and the 3-5 Cav and 3-4 Cav to go down southeast. 

Then, we kind of realized we had a problem with the Russian area because 

Russians weren’t going to show up until after D + 30. So, that’s when we gave the 

great 325th Airborne Infantry the mission of going up and establishing crossing 

points and patrolling in the Russian Sector. So, if you look it up in the book, at D 

+ 30, we probably only had about a third of our force here, if that much, and we 

were doing a 100 percent of the area simultaneous (or) trying to. 
55

The key factor there is that you’ve got to gain and maintain the initiative. That’s 

nothing new to us but we really had to sacrifice short and midterm sustainability in 

that we couldn’t bring in all the forces, all the units that would sustain us in order 

to get guys out on the ground, and start getting a peace treaty. 

After D + 30, we then turned our attention to a more proper flow of forces into 

the area to. First to sustain the base and second build the quality of life base for 

the soldiers. 

So, as January came to an end and we started into February, we really turned the 

spigot on the life support systems. Not that none of that was done in the first 30 

days but it was just that the percentage was generally ZOS, ZOS, ZOS (Zone of 

Separation) and then all the remaining energy was spent on the sustainment and the 

supporting life, which by the way, speaks awfully well of the professionalism and 

patience of the American soldier. He understood what we were up against and they 

tightened their chin straps and went right to work with few, if any, complaints. The 

grumbling over life support didn’t start until we started making the life support 

facilities and then it wasn’t coming fast enough.

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. Sir, you have arguably the most multinational 

division in US history. What would you like to say about the art and science of 

multinational command? 

Major General Nash. Oh, it’s interesting and at times exciting stuff. I’ve had 

the fortune of growing up in many cultures. My NATO (North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization) experience and a couple of other jobs that I’ve had have allowed me 

to work with armies from other countries. 

I have great respect, of course, for the Russian military because of all the years I 

spent studying them. So, we put together a team of Russian and Turks and Swedes 

and Finns, Norwegians, Danes, and Poles. It’s been very exciting. 

I think you begin treating people with dignity and respect, to include a respect 

for their military professions; you take the time necessary to listen to them, 

accommodate them, their needs, be as concerned for their soldiers as you are for 

your own and be somewhat understanding of their different personalities. Over 

time, you can work it out. In a way, this is a much easier way to go about it. 

Obviously, to try to fight this force in a high-intensity battle would be more difficult 

because the decision cycles would have to be tighter but this is certainly hard 

enough for right now as far as getting all coordinated and doing what we’re doing. 

I guess another characteristic you’ve got to consider is the respect that there is 

more than one way to clear a ZOS or control an area and everybody’s got to do 

things according to their national character and I think, get the job done any way 

possible with respect to human rights, etc.
56

The countries, particularly Russia, not to lessen the greatness of the other two 

brigade commands, but the Russians went through extraordinary efforts to provide 

what I’d describe as damn near the perfect brigade commander to work with the 

Americans the first time. The big fellow hardly speaks English but he’s got the 

right attitude, the right character, and the right skills and getting to translators is 

easy. 

My biggest problem is the same problem I would have if I had five maneuver 

brigades of American forces in my span of control. While it’s not too extended, 

does make it very difficult for me to go look soldiers, and battalion commanders, 

and brigade commanders in the eye as often as I would (a) like to, and (b) believe I 

need to. That’s my biggest issue with the multinational division. It is the number 

of brigade-sized units that make it hard to get around and see folks like you ought 

to but that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that they were foreign soldiers. 

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. Sir, another aspect of leadership, of course, was 

the command and control arrangements which were probably equally as complex. 

Do you have any insights you want to offer on working under the ARRC (Allied 

Rapid Reaction Corps) and still having links back to a national support element? 

Major General Nash. Well, it’s common when you get to be my age, to have 

more than one boss, that’s not particularly challenging. My last job I had, it seems 

like, three or four. 

So, I have a NATO boss and a national boss. It’s not too difficult. The key 

is communications. The key is talking to the right guy. General Mike Walker, 

Lieutenant General Mike Walker, the ARRC commander is a superb professional, 

well versed in multinational operations, patient with us all, realizes that we have 

our own national issues that we’ve got to work through. 

He’s frustrated by the arrangements in that his ability to influence throughout 

the Corps area is limited by national restrictions on employment of forces and he 

does not have, many Corps troops that he can call on to do for him, to reinforce key 

efforts or main efforts or solve specific problems. So, that’s frustrating for him. 

Lieutenant General John Abrams is an old friend and the finest soldier in our 

army today. So, I believe we work together very well, talk a lot, which is key. 

Command, that’s got to operate and work through the various push and pulls that 

take place. The straight technique is important in dealing with the Russians, the 

Turks, and the Nordics. You’ve got to make sure you’re talking to them, you’re 

not talking through liaison officer, you’re not talking through a third party, that 

you’re talking direct even though it may be through a translator as in the case of 

the Russians. Making that clear is very, very important. Then, as I told Defense 
57

Minister Grachev when he was here from Russia, when the Russian Brigade 

commander does good I pat him on the back, when he does bad I kick him in the 

butt and I’m going to do that without regard to any formal national arrangements 

between the two countries on what the chain of command is. The minister was 

happy. 

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. Is there anything you want to say about General 

Abrams?4

 A fair amount of his assets are under the division control for this 

operation. 

Major General Nash. It speaks to the generosity of the Corps commander. I guess 

the hardest part about getting the Corps MP Brigade, the Corps Military Intelligence 

Brigade, the Corps Signal Brigade, the Corps Medical Brigade, and a Corps Support 

Group is that my experience as a division commander at the time I received it, I 

had not matured professionally to the level necessary to know how employ them 

as well as I should have before I was given such sacred resources. 

The training process that we went through in October and November began to 

give me a feel for the capabilities (and) limitations of those units. The first 60 days 

here gave me an even better feel. Our war fighting doctrine or operational doctrine 

is based on the fact that Corps is the centerpiece for Army operations. 

So, when a division goes off by itself and in fact has an area about that of a 

Corps, they need a lot of Corps assets to do that. I couldn’t imagine doing this 

job without the MP Brigade or the Intelligence Brigade. The Signal Brigade is 

required just to span the vast distances that we’ve got. The Medical Brigade is 

obviously essential in caring for our soldiers. 

So, they’re spread out and finally, the Corps Support Group which is more, which 

is normally provided to a division, is essential not only for our sustainment but also 

in the support involving those Corps elements that are now working in our area. 

I am a very spoiled division commander given all these wonderful Corps assets 

that are working for me. It is good. 

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. Sir, the division has encountered one of the most 

challenging mine environments the United States Army has ever encountered. 

What would you like to talk about as far as how you went about that, how well it’s 

gone? 

Major General Nash. Well, as of a few minutes ago, we’ve hit thirteen mines in 

69 days of operation. This is the first mine we’ve hit in about three weeks. It’s the 

first one the Russians have hit to date. I know we’ve done better than I expected 

to. It was instilled in my mind to have much more of a problem. The training we 

received at Hohenfels and Grafenwoehr prior to deployment and stuff we did at 
58

home station has proved to be very valuable but our major success against mines 

has been focused on avoidance. 

Back in the early days of the operation, because the nature of our mission, we had 

to go into places that were known to have been mined and go through a clearing 

process prior to using the road. We found that on a number of occasions, we just 

don’t have the equipment or the techniques to ensure a cleared lane through a 

known mine field short of paving the road. We’re staying on a previously paved 

road that has been closely inspected. 

Very few of our mines were hit on the first pass across an area. Though, two 

of our thirteen mine strikes were by mine rollers which I consider good news. 

Several other mines were struck following a mine roller or certainly most of them 

who have been hit following major use of the road where we literally wore the road 

down to the point of that a very old mine finally set off. 

Our success since D + 30, D + 45, really D + 45 because we’ve been able to 

operate outside of the zone of separation and not have as high a requirement to 

keep soldiers positioned in the zone of separation between us and the warring 

factions. I’ve been very pleased with one exception on the actions post-mine 

strike which has limited the effects of multiple strikes in a single incident. We’ve 

avoided that with the exception of the lieutenant that stepped on an antipersonnel 

mine, when a day or two after a mine-striking occurred and he was back in the area 

as part of a team investigating the clearinGiven the exposure rate that we had from 

D to D + 45, I think the soldiers did superbly. Having said that, a number of those 

strikes should have been avoided. Our recent after action review process went 

down through to have the whole outfit look at all the various aspects of mine and 

counter mine operation. I think it has been very beneficial to us. 

The one fatality we’ve had to date was by a mine. That was an issue of illdiscipline on the part of the individual soldier, a leader who tampered with a mine. 

I think, it’s been reported to me that the Chief of Staff of the Army has said the 

only way to know where the mines are is to be able to see them. We’ve really got to 

work to that technology, usable workable technology that allows us to see through 

dirt and once we can see through and that’s an impossible task. Until we can see 

through dirt, we ain’t going to find mines at an efficiency level that will prevent 

strikes. 

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. Of course the work against the mines brings 

us to the issue of force protection which is always a big concern. How do you 

approach force protection for an operation like this? 

Major General Nash. Well, the first thing I did on force protection was put it in the 

mission statement of the task force. A conscious decision of my part was to ensure 
59

that as the soldiers and the leaders of the division looked at the mission statement 

they were faced with, that their analysis of the work to be done conscious decision. 

Second, we tried to adapt our tactics, techniques, and procedures to include the 

infamous four-vehicle rule to always keep people focused on the requirement to 

protect the forces. As we talked about the intent in a little while, you will see there 

are a number of things with respect to force protection and then you make sure the 

soldiers have the resources and the discipline necessary to achieve force protection 

standards but I want to say something else about force protection. It goes to the 

heart of our successful mission accomplishment. 

Our ability to avoid casualties and protect the force will directly impact on 

our ability to successfully perform our peace enforcement mission and there’re 

two aspects of that that compound our ability and directly lends itself to mission 

accomplishment for force protection. 

The first has to do, of course, with the will of American people to sustain this 

operation and as the American people and the leadership of the nation see success 

with minimal casualties; their propensity to support the operation will remain high. 

Second, as the former warring factions see our ability to conduct operations 

without sustaining casualties, it adds to our aura of proficiency and competence 

over the part of the NATO forces, in particular, Americans and that gives even 

greater, if you will, moral ascendancy over them as we go about our business. 

So, the force protection, while it is a sufficiently important subject on its own 

right, also is a major contributor to our combat power in accomplishing our mission. 

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. I’m trying to get some other big thoughts. 

You’ve talked about the fact that even though you’re here in a land-locked area of 

operations, your division operation has a lot of joint characteristics. Would you 

talk about some of the joint cooperation that’s helped you with your missions? 

Major General Nash. Well, I guess I’m a believer and I guess I’m a little sorry 

that they didn’t make me a JTF commander just so I can sing the joint song even 

louder. 

The other services in a number of occasions have brought great capabilities and 

for a variety of reasons their structure or timing, availability, natural talents got 

here quick and enabled us to multiply our power. 

You begin at the individual level with a lot of people that we’ve got working 

for us. We’ve got intercept operators, linguists from all services working in Army 

intelligence systems. Down in the Intel cells we’ve got Marines, seamen, Air 

Force types that just bring unique skills to the ability. Lastly, the units that came, 
60

the most famous being the Red Horse and the Seabees, came in and helped us build 

base camps. 

This is a fantastic capability that I have never been able to take advantage of 

before in my career. Just a herd of professionals that came in and really allowed us 

to get a leg up on this whole business of just taking care of soldiers, even though 

we didn’t start on it as early as we wanted to. 

We had the Air Force sustainment, the Air Force’s ability to project forces to 

Tuzla airbase and sustain it, sustain the heavy force through hardships, the morale 

aspects of the mail and the newspaper, the use of Air Force and Navy fighters 

to have air presence at critical times. I wouldn’t go anywhere without these 

folks. By having this redundant, I would use the word multiple capabilities to 

perform functions and anytime we go someplace, everybody’s powered together to 

accomplish a mission. The use of Army, Air Force, and Navy engineers along with 

civilian contractors to accomplish the life support situation for the forces here did 

a wonderful thing and no individual service could afford to have enough stuff to 

take care of themselves. We’ve got a massive staff. That’s just a better way to put 

it and also there’s the mere fact that we had Army, Navy, and Air Force engineers 

building base camps gave everybody a piece of the fight and that was good. 

That’s good that we had all that here and that everybody got to be a little bit 

famous as they went about their business. So I think that in itself brings a unity to 

our services, armed forces. 

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. I thought perhaps now we’d talk about intent. 

Major General Nash. Well, they told me a long time ago that intent was important. 

We’ve been talking about this in our Army for a number of years and then they 

taught me, over the years, a commander ought to sit down and do his own intent, 

work at it himself. 

The time I spent with the year at Fort Leavenworth in CAC-Training gave me an 

opportunity to go around with the BCTP folks and I really internalized that lesson 

about the importance of the commander’s intent as I watched many great divisions 

and Corps commanders go about doing their business. 

It was very evident that an understood intent directly contributed to a good 

operation. So, back in late October, early November as we were starting to bring 

in our plan, if you wish, had gone through a number of drafts of the plan, the 

first couple of which had duly written intents by the staff officer, very smart staff 

officers. I knew it was time for me to sit down and try to, synthesize if you will, 

the lessons from the training, the lessons from the studying we’ve done, and the 

lessons from the previous efforts and there in the old classroom we were using as 

a plans shop, I went to the back of the room with a yellow legal pad and sat down 
61

and wrote out the commander’s intent. In fact, personally, supervised the writing 

of the mission statement ensuring the force protection piece was in there. The 

mission statement went through a couple of revisions as we got smarter. 

We made a less aggressive statement with respect to peace enforcement and then 

I sat down with the yellow pad and wrote out what came to be the Corps Intent 

modified by wise advice from a number of my staff folks and of course, the intent 

for this operation had to be written a little bit different in that we had to talk about 

a lot of things and this was not attack to seize an objective for a given purpose, etc., 

it was in fact (to) conduct an operation. 

There were a couple of things that I thought were very key to emphasize. The 

first was what I referred to earlier as “establish world dominance”, professional 

dominance of the IFOR Force in the area and that’s why I talked about the 

characteristic of toughness, discipline, competence, and professionalism. I also 

wanted to make sure they understood that our deployment in entry operations, 

getting across the Sava River, and our initial impressions we made would have (a) 

big impact that would last the length of the mission. 

Another reason the trip from Tuzla to the Sava was important on day one was to 

make sure (that) all understood that we had our stuff together. We knew that the 

joint military commission business, even though we didn’t know a lot about it at 

the time, was important. We knew civil military affairs would be important and 

we knew working with other agencies, both primarily civilian institutions like the 

UN and other non-governmental organizations would be important so we went 

and stressed that. I think we also recognized at the very beginning and I wanted 

to make sure the soldiers recognized that we had an implied task of facilitating 

non-military efforts towards the restoration of the country and the development of 

democracy. 

There’re lots of reasons for this war in the Balkans, former Yugoslavia such 

as a lack of dignity and respect for people of the different culture, of a different 

background, and a different ethnic group. The Serbian part of the equation brought 

war about and I felt it very important for us to establish a situation where we set the 

example of treating all people with dignity and respect. With that came a firmness 

of purpose of our own and we needed to make sure they understood. Then we 

talked of the intent of some of the key factors of the treaty that were essential for 

us to establish; freedom of movement, the separation of the factions that the Zone 

of Separation establishes and then some of the other details. 

Freedom of movement, the separation of forces and establishing the Zone of 

Separation, and the sanctity of the Zone of Separation remains key. We needed 

to understand that we would have to operate even-handedly and within the rules 

of engagement and then we preferred not to use force but if force was required it 

would come quickly and come precisely. 
62

We’ve trained a lot on precision strengths, limited collateral damage, and quick 

localized stuff so it didn’t spread or escalate. Then I wanted to start transitioning 

them to my intent to thinking about the aspects of force protection and mission 

together. 

Transitioning has become an all too famous expression in division as deliberate 

well-coordinated design. I wanted to make sure we stopped, thought about, and 

deliberately went about doing what we were doing and I was willing to go slow in 

order to go right and at the same time take the time to do the assessments to preserve 

our forces and protect them. As you well know from a number of meetings, that 

was sometimes hard to drive into everybody and make sure they internalized it and 

then we turned into the end of the intent statement to talk about the force protection 

issues. We established an infamous equal four vehicle rule which, in fact, was 

generally decided by others as being important but I made it famous and the four 

vehicle rule was intended to cause deliberateness. It was intended to be hard but it 

was also intended to establish a situation where it would be very, very difficult for 

anybody to grab an American soldier to take a hostage and that it would take more 

than a few guys to hurt us.

So, if they were going to mess with us, they had to have a sufficient force to take 

on a platoon, what is generally thought of as a platoon because actually I don’t 

say four vehicles in my intent statement. I say platoon or larger formation. The 

four vehicle rule comes out of force protection message to be specific. Then we 

cautioned them on a couple of areas. You know it’s easy for civil military, some of 

the mine operations, the logistical operations, to get away from paying attention to 

what you’re doing. There’s a lot of HMMWVs running here and there and I made 

sure the commanders understood, if they had to use force to protect their soldiers, 

they were to use force. I told them I expect the commanders to take all required 

measures to care for and protect and secure their soldiers. 

The last part of the intent was to try to define for the division an end state. We 

had a hell of a time trying to figure out an end state so we finally took the Pavlovian 

approach and said that with our instinct that we wanted to achieve habitual 

compliance with the terms of the peace accord. We trained the former warring 

factions to always comply with the peace accord and they do other things that 

they want to do but they always comply with it. That’s when routine and habitual 

compliance came into being. We knew we’d turn this thing over to somebody else 

but we didn’t know who, we still don’t know who, but there will be something 

after us. 

Lastly, you had to put in the end state, the fact of getting home safely and in a 

disciplined manner was part of the up front mission. So, that was the intent as it 

was originally written in November. It served us well until, as they say in another 
63

context, the first round was fired and by that I mean, it lasted until the first day of 

the operation where some factors, did not occur as we had contemplated. 

It was important to make some adjustments in the way we went about doing our 

business. There were a couple of changes that we thought that we needed to make. 

One had to do with this issue of provocation. From the 20th of December onward, 

we found that all three former warring factions were much more cooperative than 

we had expected and in fact, that tough discipline, combat ready posture that we 

had taken, at times seemed to have an impact of provocation on them more than it 

did have to establish our dominance. So we needed to find a way not to provoke 

hostility but at the same time, retain our dominance by being friendly about it, if 

you know what I mean. 

So, we just added the phrase; “We will not be provocative.” Then we talked to 

the soldiers and the commanders about it. Being cautious about how they pointed 

a weapon. We stopped scanning turrets as we rode down the road. We made sure 

the weapons were ready but not held at a man in a threatening manner. We made 

sure that we were talking about and to people in a more friendly direct way. To 

further the cooperation, the cooperative atmosphere if you will, we also included 

in there a statement that we would inform parties of what we were going to do but 

certainly not ask their permission. 

As I said, I realized I was about to move an armored division through a fellow’s 

back yard. I probably owed him a little coordination. I probably owed him the 

information of when I was going to drive all my tanks, trucks, Bradleys, everything 

literally through his back yard in a couple of cases. 

So, we went about doing some business of coordinating but not asking permission 

and if we were going to go check something out, we didn’t hesitate to tell them. 

As we did our initial operation that we needed to make sure if we were going 

to achieve routine and habitual compliance. We needed to make sure that any 

undisciplined act or a violation of the terms of the peace accord would be dealt 

with. So, we put in a phrase that said that but we made it clear you didn’t have to 

go shoot somebody because they did something undisciplined or fired a weapon to 

celebrate something or went into the ZOS. 

It demanded action. At the very least, you had to go to the guy’s boss and tell 

him to stop doing something or call the police and tell him there’s shooting over in 

this area. Over time, we think that made a difference because we hadn’t let them 

get away with anything, or damn near not let them get away with it. That was the 

revision that we made in early January. Now, as you know, we just made another 

change to our intent. This one came out the 25th of February, it will be included in 

the revised campaign plan that has us look out at the D + 150 time frame. This one 
64

retains many of the aspects of the original intent of the mass majority. It’s written 

in a different manner because the force is closed and it’s written in the context that 

our good work continues. 

We’ll continue the contacts with the former warring factions, the joint military 

commissions. S o, it just changes the context but then it starts to talk about some 

other things, that now that we have them separated, now that we’ve established the 

ZOS, it talks about the focus of our operation being to enforce the withdrawal of 

forces into garrison locations that is more conducive to long term peace. 

It doesn’t do away with the ZOS but it does expand our view of the battlefield if 

you will or as I said earlier, peace field. 

We’re getting into a more conventional balance of forces in Europe where we’re 

doing CFE (Conventional Forces in Europe) type of inspections. Then we’ve 

added to the intent our focus on sustaining of operations, the upgrade of base 

camps, and local security of our forces for the long term. 

We also started talking about the importance of training programs within the 

task force to sustain our military. We even talks about the importance of MWR 

and R & R programs for individual sustainment and then continue to advance the 

force protection aspects with emphasis on the terrorist threat, potential terrorist 

threat. Then we tried to integrate into this intent statement, things we had learned 

since we had been here; the importance of situational awareness, the importance of 

anticipating threatening situations, the importance of being on guard at all times, 

and the requirement to have the moral courage to demand adherence to standards 

and self discipline of individuals. 

Finally, we emphasize that we need to be a learning organization through our time 

here. To integrate the lessons learned process. Then it draws attention to mines 

specifically and what we need to do to sustain our mine awareness training. Just 

to make sure they knew what I was talking about, we talked, once again, about risk 

assessment actions required to reduce risks. Yes, “deliberate well-coordinated” is 

still in there and so is the “platoon”. 

Major Gaumer. It seems like the commanders don’t understand what the intent 

really came in for... 

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. They don’t walk up to it and grab it... 

Major General Nash. Well, I would tell you, hanging around CAC (combined 

Arms Center) training for a year, I spent a lot of time at the CTCs (Combat Training 

Center) and most especially, all the BCTPs (Battle Command Training Program) 

and seen the power they do but for this operation, this long duration thing, it’s 

important to lay down some cardinal precepts of what I want things to be and what 
65

I want every soldier to know and what I want them to understand in their heart, gut 

as they go about doing it. This is high priority for me. Certainly through battalion 

commander level and I’ll harass company commanders about this. Some of the 

specifics go all the way down. So, and now that this is out, this will start being my 

talking points when I go see people. 

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. How would you answer the question; “What is 

the difference between the commander’s intent statement and the concept of the 

operation?” 

Major General Nash. I think we’ve really screwed that up in the Army and I 

think there is room for both. The concept of the operation, provide in my mind 

the physical placement of forces and fires, and organizes those forces and fires 

in time, space, and purpose for the conduct of the operation. The intent before 

that gives the mood of the operation and the why of it. The “why” in terms of 

what you hope to accomplish by doing these things and maybe goes at least in 

concept form, a step or two beyond the concept terms of what you’re physically 

giving orders on. I define concept of operation in terms of placement of forces 

and fires, organizing the time, space, and purpose. OK, that’s a personal definition 

because by the way, placement of forces and fires has to do with all the forces of an 

organization, including division support area. How do you organize all that time, 

space, and purpose? The intent is the mood of that operation and the end state that 

you’re going for and why you’re doing all this. It tries to put the reason behind that 

concept, the reason for that concept. 

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. do you have any thoughts on the media in doing 

this type of operation? 

Major General Nash. I have lots of thoughts about the media. It adds to 

a commander’s burden. Like it or not, we have been thrust into the spotlight, 

certainly during our deployment and initial operations here. Life is somewhat 

muted here at D + 59 or 60 and with a little bit of luck, we’ll keep it that way 

because we’re doing our jobs so well, we’ll have boring stories. In looking at the 

situation before the deployment, it became very evident that we were (a) going 

to have a lot of attention and (b) some of that was going to be personalized in the 

leader. For better or worse, that happens and (c) the media was already here and 

there were more of them than there were of us, certainly initially. 

I had three objectives with respect to media operations that we focused on, and 

I’m not sure we wrote this down before the fact that they were in my mind. 

The first one was I wanted to ensure that we did everything possible to gain 

and maintain the support of the American public and the support of the American 

public for the employment of its Army in Bosnia. That was without regard to 

the political decisions made about getting, coming here but that the focus on the 
66

American Army going forth and doing the nation’s deed needed to be supported by 

the American people. It added to the ability to do our job. 

The second is that I wanted to use the influence of the media for the warring 

factions as additional leverage to get the warring factions to participate in the 

process and comply with the terms of the peace treaty. 

The third and most important possibly but certainly as important as the first two 

was I wanted the American soldier to feel good about his work here. I wanted to 

make him famous so he was feeling good about what he did. My assessment at 

this point is that objective has largely been met up to this point though it certainly 

could be rated fragile. The second one is still unknown but I think it has been 

an influence. It certainly has been a weapon that we’ve used on a number of 

occasions to gain compliance and the third is in large part, I think the soldiers do 

feel good about themselves and they know they’re supported and they know that 

many of them have had their pictures in the paper and their quote in the paper and 

all that kind of stuff, so they kind of feel good about what they’re doing. 

The embedded media process that we went through, for the most part, was 

successful. It caused problems to us on a number of occasions. The most famous 

of which was when one brigade commander was the object of both support and 

criticism for an article. It caused me some personal grief because some folks 

that were around me probably said things that I wish had been written different. 

Overall, it was, the media worked out very well for us because when you take a 

good product and you want people to talk about a good product, you get a good 

story. I personally believe that when the operational security aspects of an operation 

permit, you’re better off to have an open access, take a few of the bumps, not get 

excited about the bumps, and keep trucking because the overall story will be good. 

Now the other thing I’ll say about the media, is not all of them are honorable, not 

all of them are well-versed on what they write but most of them are both. The first 

thing you ought to do when you hear about or see a critical article is read it with as 

open a mind as possible because this reasonably honorable, reasonably competent 

person may just have one or two things in there that you need to hear and at the 

very worst, he’s giving you an opinion that you at least ought to consider. 

Lieutenant Colonel Fastabend. Sir, I’d like to close with my last question, give 

you a chance to say what you’ve said before about the individual soldier...

Major General Nash. Well, it kind of goes back to the intent. The greatness of 

the American soldier is if you can figure out what you want him to do and explain 

it to him, the son of a bitch will go out and do it for you. That’s why intent is 

important. This is self-serving to some degree but I will tell you, the hard part is 

giving sensible orders because the great American soldier will go out and do what 

you give them to do. 
67

Once you give them that order, they’re going to go out and get it done. If you 

tell them you want to walk into town ready to take on anybody, OK and put up 

with no stuff, he’ll do exactly that. If you tell him to go into town and be ready, 

just don’t be provocative, and treat people with dignity and respect, he’ll do that, 

too. The other thing you need to consider is that the nature of this conflict is a land 

conflict, as most are, and it is a people conflict as many are. It’s the soldier and the 

commander on the ground that’s required to establish the conditions that it can to 

allow that conflict to come to a close. 

There are so many good things going on around that I don’t have any idea about 

but it just keeps working out, using their head. Bitching about platoon headquarters, 

that’s fine, you know but as you saw yesterday, we sat in on the weekly update for 

the commanders of the 2d Brigade, he’s taken mission orders, somewhat confused 

situations and gone forth and done great things.

So, the soldier on the ground, and I would include colonels, lieutenant colonels, 

majors, and captains as well as privates and sergeants, do great work. You need 

to look at the proficiency and competence of our captains, majors, and lieutenant 

colonels. If I’m in over my head, those sons of a bitches are swimming in the 

Pacific Ocean as far as things they’re being called upon to do and they are making 

the drive to the Sava every day. 

Major Dolan. Sir, I do have one question that I would like to ask. We’ve already 

discussed commander’s intent and everything here but there is one thing. This 

is the first time we’ve ever done something like this, and you being the general 

officer, the commander of Task Force Eagle, I’ve got to ask you what has been 

you’re greatest personal and professional challenge of being the commander of 

Task Force Eagle? 

Major General Nash. I can only name one, huh, Spike. 

Major Dolan. Sir, you can name . . . it’s up to you, sir. 

Major General Nash. I will tell you what it is, and I’m not going to tell you about 

multiple bosses, the spotlight of the media, the multinational aspects and all this. 

The hardest thing for me is that I’ve spent 30 years trying to read a battlefield and 

after 30 years you get reasonably competent at it to a certain degree but the hardest 

thing I’ve had to deal with here is seeing over the next hill, mentally in my own 

mind. 

Reading this “peace-field” is much harder than reading any of the battlefields. 

I’ve tried to read in terms of where the second echelon is likely to be; what are the 

tippers of things to come, where does he probably have his fire support and the fire 

support artillery, air, mortars, where is that deep influencing capability that he’s 

got, influencing action capability? 
So, the thing that’s different, the thing that we don’t have a view to this from 

anybody’s level, is how to read this “peace-field”. Black and white things are easy; 

move back two kilometers, put all your vehicles in a compound, no forward patrol. 

Those things we can adapt to and quickly develop TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and 

Procedures) for but how to anticipate and I say it in my new intent; anticipate 

threatening situations...anticipate the next move. This particular mission has been 

most challenging for me, personally as I intellectually try to work my way through. 

Notes

1. British Army Major General, later General Sir, Mike Jackson.

2. Colonel John R. Batiste commanded the 2d Brigade, 1 AD, from July 1995 to June 

1997.

3. Psychological operations.

4. Lieutenant General John N. Abrams, Commanding General, V Corps, had the 

additional assignment as Deputy Commander, USAREUR (Forward), a headquarters 

located in Kaposvar-Taszar, Hungary. USAREUR (Forward) managed all Title 10 

requirements for US forces in Bosnia and commanded the National Support Element 

provided by 21st TAACOM (Forward), which was collocated. Lieutenant General John N. 

Abrams commanded V Corps from 6 April 1995 to 31 July 1997.
69

Interview with Major General William L. Nash, Commanding 

General, 1st Armored Division and Commanding General, Task Force 

Eagle, for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 

December 1995-December 1996

Conducted by Dr. Charles E. Kirkpatrick, Command Historian, V Corps, 

16 May 1997, at Rose Barracks, Bad Kreuznach, Germany

Q. General Nash, when you arrived in Germany to assume command of the 1st 

Armored Division in the post-Cold War environment, what assumptions did you 

make about the division’s missions and the type of training you would have to 

devise to prepare for those missions? 

A. I knew that there was continuity and I knew that there would be change. The 

continuity was that I knew I had to focus on the warfighting capabilities and 

potential of the 1st Armored Division as a part of the Corps operation with primary 

emphasis on V (US) Corps and national military capabilities. The division also 

had an assignment to the ACE (Allied Command Europe) Rapid Reaction Corps1

for NATO contingencies and the division was also a part of the II German/US 

Korps.2 So the division also had to be able to operate in a variety of environments 

but the basis of all of that was the division’s warfighting capability as part of a 

higher level organization. What was different from the Cold War era was that there 

were multiple options on which that higher organization would be. 

The second issue that was clear to me very early is the difference in our 

involvement in the security of Europe. Here, I speak primarily of the Partnership 

for Peace program (PfP). I spent 20 years of my military service, about half of 

that in Germany, focused on the Iron Curtain and the potential for a Warsaw Pact 

attack on NATO. We guarded the fence. We did our General Defense Plan focused 

on that big fight, should the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact attack. When I came 

back to Germany this time, I learned and understood the SACEUR’s (Supreme 

Allied Commander, Europe) and the CINCUSAREUR’s (Commander-in-Chief, 

USAREUR) intent with respect to the Partnership for Peace. We still have the 

same mission that we had for 50 years in NATO but now we are going across 

that fence, dealing with the armies of Central and Eastern Europe with the same 

purposes in mind; peace, security, stability, and prosperity in Europe.

Now, we were going about it in a different manner. As we promoted stability, 

taught the virtues of an army in a democratic society, and dealt with issues that 

would even further expand stability and prosperity in Europe; we were continuing 

to do very important work in the national security interests of the United States. 

All of that, at my level, was founded on the base competency of the 1st Armored 

Division, which is warfighting proficiency. So, the basic requirements were the 

same. The environment was what had changed. The end state of peace, security, 

stability and prosperity remained the same. 
70

Q. By the time you assumed command, the 1st Armored Division had been 

preparing for a possible operation in Bosnia for several years. How much of that 

planning and preparation was of value to you in November and December of 1995? 

A. Interestingly enough, before going to my previous assignment, prior to coming 

back to Germany, I was at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, when the 1st Armored 

Division was first alerted for a potential mission in the Balkans, and this was back 

in 1993. I did some work in Lessons Learned and the Battle Command Training 

Program, in helping the division focus on this potential mission. As the conditions 

in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia changed, the potential mission of the 1st 

Armored Division was adjusted accordingly. In the two years prior to my arrival, 

the division had paid a lot of attention to Bosnia-Herzegovina and was extremely 

familiar and knowledgeable with the region, the conditions, and the factions 

involved in the conflict. 

Q. Would your judgment then be that this mass of planning and preliminary 

work was more useful in making the division comfortable with the operational 

environment rather than in having direct applicability to the operation that became 

JOINT ENDEAVOR? 

A. Exactly. Knowing the division’s contingency for Bosnia-Herzegovina, I started 

taking briefings on the Yugoslav situation and learning the terrain, something about 

the three armies, some of the personalities involved, very early in my command 

tour. 

Bosnia was a high priority when I assumed command but it was not on the 

front burner. As the events of the summer of 1995 unfolded, Srebrenica (Bosnia) 

in July and what came to be the Dayton Agreement and the various diplomatic 

developments, we paid increasing attention to the situation. As time went on, we 

realized there was a high probability that we would deploy. 

Q. In one of your earlier interviews, you mentioned the utility of some of the 

Partnership for Peace exercises, specifically “Cooperative Challenge 95”, in the 

process of getting ready to go to Bosnia...3

A. Yes but I want to start before that with “Olsina 95” which took place in the 

Czech Republic. This was a fairly small PfP exercise in which one of our battalions 

participated. The Secretary of Defense, Dr. William Perry, visited us during the 

exercise in September. When he stepped off the Czech helicopter, Dr. Perry stuck 

out his hand and said; “General Nash! Boy, have we got big plans for the 1st 

Armored Division!” It was then that I knew that I had better get some more maps 

of Bosnia. 

Of course, the Dayton negotiations were about to begin when he made that 

statement. Both Olsina and an earlier exercise in Poland and then Cooperative 
71

Challenge 95 were critical to the division in a number of aspects. They really 

focused us on the issue of maintaining the peace in a hostile, confused environment. 

Most importantly, they began the lessons on how we needed to operate in a 

multinational environment. 

The armed forces of seventeen nations were involved in Cooperative Challenge. 

That exercise, involving peace enforcement along a zone of separation was directly 

relevant to our later mission in Bosnia. In fact, I have some slides that I used to 

brief the incidents and activities of that exercise that when I show them, people 

think (they) are referring to Bosnia. It was very beneficial to us in thinking through 

the requirements of keeping the peace and in operating with the armies of other 

nations. I am a big fan of the Partnership for Peace program. I think it is a big 

benefit to the United States. 

Q. I have been spending some time analyzing the Task Force Able Sentry mission 

with the UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force) and UNPREDEP (United 

Nations Preventive Deployment Force)4 in Macedonia and particularly the amount 

of time a battalion requires to organize and train for the mission, conduct the 

mission, and then reconstitute and retrain upon returning from the deployment. 

As Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR began, one of the things that first occurred to 

me was that battalions such as 3-5 Cavalry (Cav) which had only recently returned 

from Macedonia, were being heavily committed to operations away from home 

station. This brings up the question of fatigue. More directly, how much of this 

sort of thing is reasonable for a given soldier on a single overseas tour of duty? 

A. Well, I have another battalion just like that, the 1-6 Infantry, previously the 

3- 12 Infantry. I pinned an Expert Infantryman’s Badge on a soldier today that 

had served in Macedonia in the rotation before 3-5 Cavalry and then served in 

Bosnia as part of Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. The operational pace for the 

forces in the United States Army, Europe, is very high. The tempo is extremely 

high. Soldiers are working extremely hard and the bench is extremely shallow. As 

a consequence, folks are coming and going quite often. 

Q. Will this have an impact on retention, in the long run? 

A. Well, to some degree but that is also counterbalanced by a great excitement on 

the part of the soldier about his ability to make a useful contribution to mankind 

and to be of service to his nation. The reenlistment statistics in the 1st Armored 

Division are overwhelming. Soldiers are anxious to reenlist and they are anxious 

to reenlist, in large part, to stay in Old Ironsides (the division). It is gratifying 

to see that. I think, though, that we need to balance the books and balance the 

deployments.

Soldiers and families are more than willing to accept the hardships that go with 

soldiering. At the same time, they think that hardship should be shared by the 
72

Army as a whole. I think we ought to look at that. The demands on a fairly small 

force here in Europe have become quite high over the past couple of years. 

Q. Is it clear that a soldier on a three year tour in USAREUR should anticipate at 

least one long deployment away from home station?

A. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable assumption. 

Q. That leads me to the question of rear detachments. I believe that you have 

previously characterized rear detachments during Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, 

across the division, as a success story. The question arises as to whether, assuming 

we are going to do more of this sort of thing, rear detachment operations should not 

become an explicit part of our mission essential task list? 

A. I think it needs to become part of the Army’s organizational structure. If you 

say that the American Army today is a force projection Army that is probably 

not going to be employed where it lives but elsewhere, either using the United 

States, the Pacific, or Europe, as a projection platform; and the United States Army, 

Europe, is a first class force projection platform as we have demonstrated many 

times, it is absolutely essential for the Army to recognize that when troops leave, 

families and rear detachments will remain. We have to organize for that, and not 

have an ad hoc arrangement every time. That is why the ASG-BSB (Area Support 

Group-

 Base Support Battalion)5 structure in Europe is so important. 

We also need to look at acknowledging the requirements for rear detachment 

and family liaison organizations within the Active Army and we need to structure 

ourselves to meet those needs. It is, in fact, at least an implicit part of our METL 

(Mission Essential Task List) today but I would advocate allocating an increased 

proportion of our resources to institutionalizing the process. 

Q. Are you familiar with the training program that USAREUR ran for rear 

detachment commanders and, if so, were you satisfied with it? 

A. Yes, I certainly was. The good thing is that we will now do that training before 

we deploy. That is obviously essential. We are establishing fulltime family support 

group liaisons in all our battalions and separate companies. Commanders know 

that rear detachment requirements must be considered. In my judgment, we will 

also make better use of the ASG-BSB configuration to assist us in the months 

ahead. 

Q. On the issue of ASG-BSB missions, I have gotten various and variable 

comments from battalion commanders on the utility of the base support battalion 

as a launching platform for tactical units. What are your views on this? 

A. In 1990, when we deployed to Southwest Asia from Europe, it took one of the 
73

non-deploying divisions to get us out of here, to project the force. This time, in 

large measure, the ASGs and the 21st Theater Area Army Command performed 

that function. 

In general terms, things worked fine, with respect to the support structure but we 

learned a lot of lessons on how to do things better, both in terms of the operational 

procedures and the logistical procedures necessary to get people out of Germany. 

Anytime you do something in the Army, you can always make a long list of 

things that need to be improved, because we are so self- analytical. We look at 

ourselves so very harshly because we want to be very good. There were some 

things that were confusing. Sometimes the blocking and bracing material was not 

in the right place or maybe a train was a day late or two days early or the type of 

cars were not perfect. Of course, we could not have done this deployment under 

more difficult circumstances; the French rail strike, the weather, the fact that it was 

Christmas, and a wide variety of other issues. Sure, there is room for improvement 

but we have the basic framework on how to do this. It is a matter of more detailed 

planning, rehearsals, and some resourcing, both in terms of people and of dollars. 

Q. One of the BSB commanders commented that he could not responsibly justify 

maintaining a battalion personnel structure on a year-round basis that would be 

sufficient for complete staffing of a rail head, something he might do only once a 

year. The question therefore arises as to whether the tactical battalion commanders 

fully understand what they can expect from the BSB when they arrive at a rail head 

and that they will also have to provide soldiers to help run the operation? 

A. Well, probably not completely because we have not yet gone back down and 

reviewed this business thoroughly and worked out all the issues to make certain 

that all of the brigade and battalion commanders understand the process. I can’t 

yet say that everybody is on board but it is true to say that no one can afford to 

have everything he needs at the moment of crisis. I can’t have it in terms of people, 

parts, ammunition, or other things but when the requirement arises, we can mass 

our resources. 

Maybe part of the answer is that one BSB can send people to help another BSB 

that is at that moment tasked with a demanding mission. We have a certain degree 

of flexibility and some of our units that are not deploying can also be called upon 

to give some help. In our particular case, nearly everybody from the 1st Armored 

Division was going so we had to have a lot of external assistance which was, in 

fact, provided. 

Q. Linked to that issue, the loss of expertise, particularly in transportation, as a 

consequence of the European draw down, was felt fairly acutely at various points 

in this deployment. Do you see that as an issue that should be revisited? 
74

A. I think that it is very important for the United States Army to understand the 

power projection platform potential of the United States Army, Europe and to 

examine all of the issues associated with that; logistical resupply, transportation, 

the basic infrastructure, and the data automation systems to support all of that. We 

need a steady program that keeps getting us better. You can’t have it all in one day. 

Q. It appears that there are some training issues that arose out of the way we have 

traditionally done business. When we have gone to a training area, we have sent 

the tracks by rail but have motor-marched the wheeled vehicles. As a consequence, 

we know a lot about loading and tie-down of tracked vehicles but do we have 

experience with loading and tie-down of wheeled vehicles? 

A. Yes. That’s exactly right but I guess I would just say that there are so many 

things to do, to be a totally capable force, that you have to prioritize things. I mean, 

we can learn how to load wheeled vehicles pretty damned fast and we don’t need 

to spend too much time on that. 

Q. Apparently so, because the battalions sure did it. 

A. That’s right. They learned it quickly. 

Q. It seemed to me that literally improvising a deployment plan on the run was 

a triumph for the staffs and the units involved. On the deployment itself, would 

you comment on the rapidity with which it had to be conducted, once the orderly, 

sequential plan was overcome by the political requirements arising from the 

Dayton Agreement? 

A. It is kind of like a couple of other things I have experienced in the course of my 

military career. It’s a miracle that we pulled it off but a bit of a nightmare going 

through it. It is a great tribute to the soldiers and civilians who did it. The thing 

that I would to think the most about in the years ahead as we study this problem, 

is the natural tension between the transporters, who are looking for efficiencies in 

transport, and the deploying commanders, who are looking for unit integrity upon 

arrival. 

That is a major issue that we have to come to grips with. We tried very hard for 

unit integrity as we moved. We wanted a train with vehicles, a train with people, 

and a train with supplies; all connected together. So, a unit would move from 

Budingen, Germany, through the rail system. It would arrive somewhere in Croatia 

and get off the train and that troop commander or that squadron commander or 

that battalion commander, would have all his people and stuff and be 100 percent 

mobile and ready to execute his mission. Then he could be immediately employed 

as a unit in the conduct of the mission. That’s a very difficult thing to do because 

there are lots of moving parts. 
75

When you can’t get all the right rail cars in the right place because the deep well 

cars are stuck in Paris as a consequence of the rail strike and it’s Christmas and the 

work force is limited and so on, it gets difficult. The biggest challenge we faced 

is that we got the word to go on 15 December 1995 and on 19 January 1996, we 

had the requirement to have three armies separated in Bosnia. In those 35 days, 

there was a lot to be done. We had to get there, get to work, and accomplish very 

significant missions in a very short time. That provided all the tension anybody 

needed in order to be successful. It was very demanding. 

By means of air and mostly ground transportation, rail, we were able to do that. 

The good news was that by commanders talking to commanders, all the way from 

battalion through division, and then with me talking to General Abrams and the 

USAREUR authorities, we could adjust things, adjust the flow, to get the right 

forces into place to get the job done. Don’t forget that we also had 8,000 soldiers 

from other nations coming into our area at the same time. 

Q. Sir, would you comment on the question of what differences you see in battle 

command in a peace enforcement environment, as opposed to a heavy force 

operation? 

A. That’s a really hard one. I want to back up a little bit to a point I mentioned 

earlier about continuity and change here in the division as I arrived. With respect 

to peace enforcement operations, the military brings warfighting expertise to the 

table. If we go away from that expertise, our usefulness is diminished. I am 

firmly convinced that it was our proficiency and credibility in warfighting that 

allowed Task Force Eagle to establish and keep the peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

Therefore, the basics of battle command in peace enforcement or in warfighting, 

are the same. 

You must know where you are and where your buddies are and you must know 

where the “enemy” is and the relative status and intentions and capabilities of 

each. The issue in a peace enforcement environment or in a conflict resolution 

environment, is that in addition to those warfighting capabilities, you must be 

cognizant of the factors that brought about the war. I wasn’t the gun that brought 

the war about or the gun that executed the war. I would submit to you that it is the 

political, economic, and social factors in the area that brought about the war, some 

combination of those to varying degrees. 

Therefore, battle command in a peace enforcement environment is founded 

on warfighting skills but those warfighting skills probably can only give you an 

absence of war. You must recognize that the political, economic, and social issues 

that brought about the war are the ones that need to be addressed to achieve lasting 

peace. 
76

Q. Does that mean that the issue does not lie entirely in your hands as a military 

commander? 

A. Well, no. In fact, the short line that I use when I describe this phenomenon is 

that the military can only give you an absence of war. Others must build the peace 

but we can help. So battle command in this environment is recognition of a large 

number of factors and a working relationship, both formal and informal, with the 

civilian authorities that are addressing the political, economic, and social aspects 

of long-term peace, stability, and prosperity in the region. That’s one aspect of 

battle command that I think is preeminent. 

There is second that I think we also need to recognize. This falls under another 

heading. The land combat soldier was our key to success. Leadership development 

of our Army is essential as we look to the 21st century. Leadership development 

aspects, land combat soldier aspects, first of all have to do with the ability to 

recognize the political, social, and economic issues that bear on achieving the 

mission but all business here is human relations. It is a people business. As we 

look at battle command and mission accomplishment in this environment, we have 

to understand that the human dynamic is at the forefront of all the issues. You’ve 

got to treat people right. I’m not talking about negotiating and not necessarily as 

the title of that book Getting to Yes,6 which is a book about negotiating, implies. 

I am talking about getting to compliance and that has to do with military power. 

It also has to do with honesty, treating people with dignity and respect and with 

even handedness. It has to do with firmness of purpose. What I call the human 

relations high ground needs to be captured in this battle command environment as 

you work these issues. By definition, you are in a cauldron of war and are trying 

to put a stop to it first by imposing an absence of peace and then by helping to 

develop peace. Human relations are key to this and battle command must take 

those considerations into account. 

Q. It seems to me that you may be calling for a junior officer with a lot more 

political savvy than we have previously expected, yes? 

A. Well, yeah (sic) but you know, this business of treating people right begins 

right there in the tank platoon and there is a carry over. There is an atmosphere 

here; “I’m a straight-shooter and I’m proficient too.” The other aspect to battle 

command is that I had to operate with great reliance on my intent and a much less 

degree of personal supervision for mission accomplishment.

So, I put a lot of time into phrasing my intent and I personally wrote my original 

intent and personally word-smith every modification to it throughout the year. 

There were a series of four or five different intents. I wanted that intent understood 

two levels, three levels, and in some cases, four levels down. Thus, the lieutenant 

at the checkpoint understood dignity and respect, of being non-provocative but 
77

also of displaying a firmness of purpose. He understood, and knew how to make 

sure that the factions understood, that we would not accept a violation of Annex 1 

A of the (Dayton) Peace Accord. 

I am very satisfied with the leadership development of our Army and our ability 

to adapt to that environment. Now, did I spend a lot of time talking about it? Did 

I spend a lot of time going around from unit to unit? Did I spend a lot of time with 

brigade commanders to make sure the word was getting out? Of course but that is 

part of my business. The last thing I would say, and this is something that others 

who have looked at the operation have pointed out, is that from the lieutenant 

up, the ability to amass information and conduct a pretty critical analysis of that 

information and synthesize it, is an important skill. 

Lastly, on battle command; timely, accurate, and complete reporting is the basis 

for all battle command. We really had to emphasize that because it was very hard to 

get the straight story of what happens in Bosnia. There just seems to be something 

in the air there that makes reports contradictory. 

Q. When I mentioned political savvy, I was thinking of some of the comments that 

lieutenants serving in Macedonia made about the UNHCR (United Nations High 

Commissioner for Refugees)7

 and other nongovernmental organizations that don’t 

work administratively in a way that is familiar to a soldier. 

A. Well you know, the problem with those civilian organizations is that they don’t 

have any first sergeants but God bless the UNHCR! There is not a group of people 

in the world today more dedicated to mankind than the UNHCR and the Catholic 

charities and the Norwegian Aid and all of these humanitarian, nongovernmental 

agencies. They are very, very dedicated people. They want to do well and to build 

peace and to help people but you see, that goes back to the issue of the human 

relations high ground. You treat ‘em right, you listen to them, you understand what 

they are trying to do. You sit down with them and try to guide them a little bit and 

help them to get organized. 

The work that we did with OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation 

in Europe) in the Bosnian elections is a perfect example of the capabilities of the 

American soldier and the Turkish soldier and the Russian soldier and the Swedish 

soldier, to go out and accomplish these tasks. Another aspect of multi-nationality, 

by the way that adds a multiplier to the force, is this; the Turkish soldiers showed 

us how to do civil affairs projects. The Turkish Brigade commander talked to me 

about the tricks of the trade in running an election. They do it a lot more than we 

do. There is a lot to be learned. 

Q. What do you see as the impact of the “new appliqué” on battle command? 

A. That, of course, has to do with computerized systems. We had little if any of the 
78

new appliqué. We applied some advanced computer capabilities at our command 

post but that is of no great significance. 

Q. In that case, I’ll pass on to the issue of how you trained people in theater. Can 

you comment on preparing replacements to work on the task force staff? 

A. We were not as quick to pick up on this requirement as we should have been but 

neither were we too late. Three aspects of that training program stand out. 

The first is the simplest. The new soldier who shows up in an organization 

whether he is a private infantryman showing up in a squad, or a new staff officer 

showing up in a brigade headquarters or a new primary staff officer arriving at the 

task force headquarters, you have to spend some time making sure they understand. 

Now, there was a lot of preliminary work before they ever came to the theater; 

the basic skills of mine awareness, cold weather operations, and other individual 

training. The next key is that the squad leader has to take over. Just as in Germany 

with a family, in Bosnia it’s necessary to have a sponsor. You had to have somebody 

paying attention to that new soldier, making sure he was watched, taken care of, 

learned the environment and procedures, and the operations he was expected to do. 

The individual soldier has to know where all the things are in his world in which 

he is going to operate. For divisional and brigade staff officers, it was necessary to 

get them out to see all the division or brigade. 

At about the brigade or battalion level, certainly the battalion level, there needs 

to be a formal orientation. So, the first lesson here is that attention has to be paid to 

the new guy. The Center for Army Lessons Learned has paid some attention to that 

and studied one of our better units at integrating new soldiers. They showed CALL 

the checklist of the things one squadron commander wanted his new soldiers to 

know how to do and each of our battalions had a similar program. 

The second aspect is that you have to maintain your warfighting capability because 

that again, is the basis for all that you do. We spent a lot of time making certain that 

we were good at shooting and at maneuvering, at least at the platoon level. That’s 

why we used to fly infantry and tank companies up to Taszar, Hungary, so they 

could go to the Taborfalva Range. Every tank and Bradley crew went to Hungary 

and shot. Our artillery also went to Hungary to fire but most of them, along with 

the mortars, went to a range in Bosnia and fired extremely fine training exercises as 

did our attack helicopters and scout helicopters. That was very valuable training. 

In those training exercises, we conducted basic level fire coordination exercises, 

or joint air attack missions, to ensure that we could continue to mass firepower, 

should the occasion demand it. We also used some of those training events as 

demonstrations for some of our friends in Bosnia, to make certain they understood 

that we had great capabilities, should we choose to use them. 
79

The third aspect is making sure the force as a whole continues the excellence 

they had gained as part of the training they went through before the deployment. 

Therefore, we ran staff battle drills. We made sure that, after every real operation, 

we conducted an after action review to make sure that we had extracted all the 

lessons from that real operation just as we would for a training exercise. We spent 

a lot of time on that.

Lastly I would say, as we came home, we went to work on making sure that the 

crews fired as they moved through Hungary, going back to the Central Region. 

After a relatively short period of rest, about 45 days, our training program started 

again. Here we are, the division back from Bosnia less than five months and we 

are in the throes of a full-scale, warfighting-focused, armored division training 

program. 

Q. Do you have any comments on the support coming out of Hungary and the 

distance from the Intermediate Staging Base (ISB) there to Task Force Eagle 

locations? 

A. I guess I would have said that the question was; “How much did Hungary 

help us by being so close”? The fact that we set up an intermediate staging base 

in Hungary, more than half the distance from home base to our area of operation 

was, I thought, an act of genius in support of the force. Do I wish it had been 50 

kilometers closer? Sure I do. Do I wish it had been 100 kilometers closer? Sure 

I do. Could it have been 50 kilometers further away? Yes it could. It was about 

right, in other words. It was a great facility that allowed us to guard large amounts 

of supplies and measure them into the area of operations as required. That lessened 

the logistical load on me. Had the ISB not been there, I would have had to have 

accepted a much higher level of supply from Germany. 

Because of the distances involved, the logistical safety level for the task force 

would have considerably increased my management difficulties. So I was very 

pleased with it. The real payoff of the ISB was when we went home. Operations 

there allowed us to come home somewhere between 200 percent and 500 percent 

better off than we were when we came home from Operation DESERT STORM. 

I brought a brigade back from DESERT STORM and we were a year plus getting 

that sucker reorganized. We are back at work now and the ISB enabled that. Don’t 

forget, though, that the ISB was being set as Task Force Eagle was deploying, so 

its utility during deployment was not as great as it was during sustainment and 

redeployment. 

Q. Can I presume that you conclude the plan of passing units through the ISB for 

reconstitution prior to redeployment to Central Region, was a sound one?

A. Oh, God, yes. The standard that the Corps commander and I established for the 

ISB was this; seven days in the ISB would save the platoon sergeant two months 
80

of work back in Central Region and we achieved that. The platoon sergeant, for 

example, didn’t have to go out and look for new LBE (load bearing equipment) for 

a soldier and get him an appointment at CIF (central issue facility). It was all done 

right there. No, it was a crucial timesaver. The process allowed us to go home, 

count our stuff, and then go on leave. It was wonderful. 

Q. The last several questions are all tied together in terms of force structure and 

training and mission requirements. The conditioning thing is the assumption that 

the Army in Europe will do a lot more peace enforcement operations. At the same 

time, however, V Corps’ principal competency remains the heavy force mission. 

I had thought that there would have been differing training requirements for the 

two missions but you have already described training competencies in Bosnia that 

are no different than those for a heavy force operation. Yet, when we send a task 

force to Macedonia for Able Sentry, the United Nations requirement that soldiers 

be obvious and visible, for example, demands a style of patrolling that is 180 

degrees out from that which Fort Benning teaches. How do you see these tensions 

or tradeoffs? 

A. Yes, I do have some comments. I think that, any time you don’t patrol like 

Fort Benning tells you to patrol, you are making a mistake. I think that, any time 

you don’t drive tanks the way Fort Knox tells you to drive tanks, you are making 

a mistake. It is very difficult for me to compare the Macedonia mission with 

the Bosnia mission and I will tell you that I get very nervous when we do nonstandard operations or when we take an organization and have it do something 

that it does not do for a living. Now, I have a tank battalion in Macedonia right 

now conducting dismounted patrolling the way the UN likes to do it, manning 

checkpoints, and doing a whole bunch of things that tank battalions don’t do. I 

don’t like that a whole lot. I think it is necessary and within the bounds of sensible 

and prudent actions but it is not my favorite form of doing things. I strongly 

believe that we must use the right force for a given mission and the Army has to 

have the versatility and the flexibility to provide that. 

At the same time, the greatness of the American Soldier and the American 

Commander is that they can take something non-standard and go do it right. Risks 

are assessed and managed within the bounds of prudent behavior. I am not against 

what we are doing because we are doing it right but I am against not doing things 

the way the Army likes to do them. I go back to my earlier comments. I am kind 

of a hard-nose on this peace enforcement stuff. I think you ought to have your chin 

strap buckled, have your flak jacket on, and I think you ought to be the biggest, 

meanest, toughest dog in town and keep the peace, dammit! I just think we ought 

to be like that. There are a lot of people who fuss about that but I can wear a flak 

jacket and talk politics. I can wear a flak jacket and still talk about economic 

development because I am the soldier at the table. Colonels Greg Fontenot and 

John Batiste, they are the soldiers at the table. Now, they are some pretty damned 
81

smart guys and they can talk about a whole lot of things pretty erudite and they can 

deal in a lot of arenas but they are still the soldiers at the table and that’s how we 

ought to behave. 

The other thing that you kind of touched on and I want to jump on is that Bosnia 

has never been a USAREUR-only mission. TFAS (Task Force Able SentryMacedonia) should not be just a USAREUR mission either. Those are United 

States Army missions and the Army ought to put the right folks in the right jobs 

doing the right things. By the way, that also goes with the idea of sharing the 

burden. We are one Army; active, reserve, and civilian. We have one mission or 

rather a series of “one missions,” for which we ought to pick the right personnel and 

the right equipment to serve in the right places. The interoperability between our 

forces; which exists and which we demonstrated in Operation DESERT STORM 

and in Bosnia, by the way, allows us to bring CONUS (Continental United States) 

units over here and have them operate with European-based forces. We are not 

two armies. We are one Army and we need to operate like that. As we continue 

our mission in Bosnia, you will see more and more CONUS units being involved. 

Q. The situation you described with the tank battalion in Macedonia is really not 

much improved if a mechanized infantry battalion is deployed because it is still 

necessary to reorganize the battalion to create two light infantry companies and 

you break up leader-led relationships and long-established crews and teams. It 

takes time to build those relationships and at the other end of the operation, they 

have to be built again. It just seems that the correct force structure for the TFAS 

mission is a light infantry battalion or a military police battalion. Would require 

deployment of forces from other parts of the Army? 

A. To some extent, your argument is right but the other thing that USAREUR has 

wisely come up with, that I am a major fan of is this “form-train-deploy” model. 

We don’t just throw those guys down into Macedonia. There is a very significant 

training effort. We form the right team and train them to the right standard before 

we send them off with risks assessed and managed within a prudent range. My 

point is that we do it right. Now, on the other hand, you don’t want to organize the 

Army for Able Sentry. You don’t want to organize the Army for peace enforcement. 

You want to organize the Army for warfighting, and you can adapt from there. 

For a small battalion-sized mission in Macedonia, we can easily adapt to that 

structure. For a larger mission, like Bosnia, we adapted our units but we stayed as 

units. That’s the big difference between Macedonia and Bosnia. We went down 

there as tank battalions and mech battalions and artillery battalions and attack 

aviation battalions. We did not go down there with units all mixed up. We just 

adapted our tactics to fit the situation. So, I don’t want to start organizing the Army 

into a series of TFAS battalions. 
82

Q. Do you think that some consideration ought to be given to the force structure in 

Europe, given the requirements of these peace enforcement missions? 

A. No. I think the Army is organized about right. I wouldn’t necessarily change 

the European force structure, though it is always worthwhile to review the bidding 

every now and again. There is more than adequate force within the United States 

Army to meet this variety of missions. It is just a question of where you pull that 

force from. We have plenty of battalions that are ideally organized for TFAS. 

Q. Do you think we have enough CSS (Combat Service Support) in theater for 

what we are now doing? 

A. I think we have access to enough CSS in the Army to do it. It’s the same thing, 

one Army. 

Q. Allow me to sketch a scenario about leader development, which you have already 

mentioned. Let’s say that a lieutenant arrived in Germany after the basic course at 

Fort Knox and became a tank platoon leader. Shortly thereafter, he deployed with 

his unit to Bosnia, where he was involved with peace enforcement for a year. Not 

too long after returning to Germany after Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, he goes 

back to Fort Knox for the armor advanced course. Following which, he comes 

back to Germany as a tank company commander and is promptly deployed for 

another peace enforcement operation. Multiply this case by a generation of young 

officers or young sergeants. Do you think this restricted experience base has any 

detrimental effect on the kinds of leaders we are developing? 

A. Well, we could be but I don’t think we will be. When a platoon leader comes 

in here to the 1st Armored Division before he goes to Bosnia with his platoon, he 

is going through Table XII (tank training). He is going to fire a platoon-level livefire exercise. Then he and his platoon are going down to Hohenfels (in Germany) 

and they are going to conduct conventional warfighting operations. Then they 

are going to do some special mission training associated with Bosnia, with peace 

enforcement. We are always going to keep coming back to the basic warfighting 

skills. While he is in Bosnia, he is going to go out and practice tank gunnery skills 

and take his platoon up to Taborfalva range and shoot tank gunnery and maneuver 

as a platoon a little bit. 

When he goes back to Germany from Bosnia, his platoon is going to go through 

Table XII on its way home. When he gets back home, less than six months later, 

that tank platoon leader is going to Hohenfels to run deliberate attacks, movements 

to contact, hasty defenses, and all the other conventional warfighting skills. So, 

before he leaves the division to go back to the advanced course, he will have a year 

in Bosnia and he will have had two years of hard-core training, both in warfighting 

and in peace enforcement. 
83

He will get his full load of training and experience. In the case of Macedonia, 

we are even looking at making sure that the companies go through Hohenfels 

STX (situational training exercise) lanes on tank company fighting tactics to make 

sure that they have that professional development before they are deployed for the 

TFAS mission. When he goes back to CONUS, he is going to go out to the NTC 

(National Training Center) and fight that dreaded OPFOR (opposing forces) in a 

high-intensity pitched battle. So I am not too concerned about this problem so 

long as we stay organized for and focused on warfighting and adapt to missions 

according to the form-train-deploy model. 

Q. Did the staff officer benefit professionally from these challenges certainly by 

comparison to the more restricted range of issues with which a staff officer had to 

deal during the Cold War years? 

A. Well, so did the lieutenants. Let me tell you about the platoon leader, the 

company commander, the staff officer in Bosnia. They issued a platoon frag 

(fragmentary) order every day. They did a pre-combat inspection every day. They 

checked their soldiers every day. They did five years of soldiering in a year. 

Q. Is this point stressed?

A. It needs to be stressed! We call this a “career-defining experience”. These 

leaders were expected to maintain the moral courage to do it right, every day, for 

a year. Its’ powerful stuff, just like some of us had to do in Vietnam, every day 

and we have a better Army today than we had in Vietnam, better supervised at the 

company and battalion level. The soldiers, as a group, are more motivated now 

and have better skills. I would just tell you that there are some veterans in the 1st 

Armored Division and now in the 1st Infantry Division and in all the Corps units 

that supported us that, in a year, got five years of soldiering experience. There 

were no weekends. It was not six to six, unless you mean six in the morning to six 

in the morning, seven days a week. 

Q. I think, of the private from 1st Infantry Division who was told to pick up his 

duffel bag and report to 1st Armored Division, where he is suddenly no longer part 

of a team and is a stranger who walks in just in time to be told to get on the train. 

I think I know the answer to my next question but I’ll pose it anyway. Do you see 

a down side to the necessary cross-leveling across the Corps that went on to bring 

units up to strength for deployment to Bosnia? 

A. The need to cross-level is there. We have no choice. The Army is overstructured by about 25,000 slots. Given the various priorities, that means that the 

shortages in some of the operational units are even greater. You’ve got to do what 

you’ve got to do. The good news is that we have good soldiers everywhere and 

so, when you get a soldier in from Schweinfurt (Germany), joining the battalion 

at Baumholder (Germany), he is quickly integrated. Before long he is one of the 
84

guys or one of the gals, as the case may be. So we make it work and I don’t think 

we lost a lot of capability. Except, don’t forget, that outfit in Schweinfurt is now 

short a soldier and that’s not good. When we come back, that soldier will go back 

home to Schweinfurt and can’t deploy when his unit goes to Bosnia since he has 

just returned from a short tour. Therefore, I have to send one of my new guys to 

fill that slot. 

You get in kind of a vicious cycle. When the 1st Infantry Division went to 

Bosnia to replace 1st Armored, the Corps Commander tried very hard to turn the 

replacement fire hose on 1st Infantry Division to minimize the TCS (Temporary 

Change of Station) requirement and I only have 87 soldiers, I think, TCS to 1st 

Infantry Division in Bosnia right now which is a fairly small number out of the 

12,000 assigned. We need to keep working on this, as I think the Chief of Staff of 

the Army wants to do, to get the end strength to match the force structure so our 

need to cross-level is minimized. 

Q. Allied to that is the ODP (Officer Distribution Plan) question. We have a shorthand expression for “send me a skilled and capable officer for a demanding mission”. 

It is; “Send me a battalion or brigade commander”. If you make the assumptions 

that lieutenants need to be led every day and that teams need commanders to build 

them, then aren’t there are some costs associated with detailing commanders for 

unavoidable missions, as we have seen throughout Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR? 

A. I agree with you. You have to mass for the fight that’s before you. That’s a 

necessity but we need to look really hard at the way we do that and we have to 

understand what we are doing to ourselves, that’s very important and I think we 

have felt the effects of this snatching of leaders and of the inability of leaders 

to spend the time with their units that they want to spend. I know the V Corps 

Commander recognizes this and is worried about it publicly. It all has to do with 

that end-strength and force structure imbalance. You go down to Bosnia and you 

are suddenly running a joint military commission and a multinational headquarters 

and you have staff requirements that far exceed those of conventional warfighting. 

There is a requirement for a high number of highly qualified senior folks. You 

have to pay the bill. Another one that is a great example is the foreign area officers 

(FAO) that you require. I was trying to find every Yugoslavian, Turkish, Russian, 

Swedish FAO that I could possibly get to come in and work with this force and 

with the former warring factions. You have to mass those people, as required, to 

get the job done. 

Q. Would you comment on logistics. We understand the capabilities and limitations 

of LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program). If we are going to have to 

live with contracted logistics, do we need to change or streamline the way we 

handle contracting? 
85

A. I don’t know about how we need to do contracting. We need to understand it 

better than I understood it in January of 1996 and I understood it better than the 

average bear because I had done some contracting in previous assignments. I think 

we have to use green-suiters or blue-suiters or dark blue-suiters for the initial entry 

capability. I know there are some issues on this that are above my pay grade but I 

was very satisfied with the performance of the Air Force Red Horse teams and the 

Navy’s Seabees both going into and coming out of Bosnia. I don’t think that any 

of the services can afford to have all the engineers that they need when they are the 

main effort on such an operation so I think that massing the nation’s capabilities is 

good for a number of reasons. 

Turning things over to LOGCAP is a smart thing to do. It saves us force structure 

and it saves us money in the long run. I don’t know if we so much need to change the 

way we do contracting as we need to become more cognizant of the management 

requirements that contracting implies. We need the right expertise at the right time 

to do what needs to be done. When we brought in Brigadier General Bob Flowers 

to take over the base camp business, things started getting organized. We brought 

in one of these smart engineers who knew how to do this stuff and everything; the 

special expertise, the contractors, and so forth began to work correctly.

As with a lot of other things about our initial entry into Bosnia, we started out 

behind the power curve because of a number of constraints that were rightfully put 

on us but that were nevertheless harmful to our efficient employment of resources. 

We caught up very quickly and, all things considered, I think things went amazingly 

well. I am very comfortable with LOGCAP. By the way, in a peace enforcement 

environment, the ability to go in and hire a lot of locals to work for LOGCAP helps 

the economic aspect, at least temporarily. 

Q. Also in terms of augmentation, in previous interviews, you have expressed 

yourself generally satisfied with Reserve Components. Do you think the Reserve 

mobilization and deployment system could be improved with respect to timeliness?

A. I really didn’t see a lot of that. My comment is that I was very satisfied with the 

performance of the Reserves. In a few cases, I wish they would have been there 

a little bit earlier. I have no reservations about the deployment and integration 

of Reserves. Some 90 percent of the time, I couldn’t tell if a soldier was Active 

Component or Reserve Component. Any time you switch out a unit though, you 

have to provide adequate time for overlap and that’s true whether the unit is active 

or Reserve. Major General Monty Meigs8

 and I overlapped a whole lot. Reserve 

outfits need to overlap a whole lot. I am comfortable with all of that. The thing 

that needs attention is the Reserve Components personnel and finance system 

which needs to be aligned with the Active Component system. Why there are two 

systems, I don’t know. It has to be transparent. 
86

Q. Finally, sir, if you were to speak to your successors in command, those 

evaluating Army force structure, doctrine writers, and the Army schools, what 

would your experience with Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR lead you to say? 

A. Focus on warfighting. Focus on leader development. Focus on the combat 

soldier. Understand the broad aspects of the political, military, social, and economic 

circumstances in a peace enforcement operation. 

Notes

1. The Allied Command Europe, Rapid Reaction Corps, Normally abbreviated ARRC, 

has headquarters at Rheindahlen, Germany and is a British framework headquarters. The 

ARRC ultimately became the land component command headquarters for the NATO 

Implementation Force (IFOR) in Bosnia-Herzegovina, responsible for implementing the 

Dayton Peace Accords.

2. The Bi-National Corps is in fact a pair of bi-national Corps. The II (German) Korps, in 

Ulm, consists of the 1 Gebirgsdivision, the 1st Armored Division, and a US Corps Support 

Group, while the V (US) Corps consists of the 1st Infantry Division, 5 Panzerdivision, 

and a German Army Air Defense battalion. The two headquarters are allocated to NATO 

Central Region contingencies. In February 1993, the two nations signed an Implementing 

Agreement to create the two Corps, with the Technical Agreement being signed on 14 

December 1993. The specific details are contained in the Technical Arrangement Between 

the Commanding General, V United States Corps and the Commanding General, II German 

Korps Concerning the Establishment of Two Bi-National Corps Noting the Agreement 

as of 10 February 1993 between the Commander-in-Chief, United States Army Europe 

and Seventh Army and the Chief-of-Staff, Army, Federal Republic of Germany, dated 14 

June 1994. See also Thomas-Durell Young, “Multinational Land Formations and NATO: 

Reforming Practices and Structure” (Carlisle Barracks, PA: US Army War College, 

Strategic Studies Institute), 69-70. This relationship existed from 1993 until the German 

Army was restructured in December 2005. See also e-mail message, Ms. Lenka Warner, 

Command Group, V Corps, to Dr. Harold E. Raugh, Jr., Command Historian, V Corps, 3 

April 2008. 

3. Partnership for Peace (PfP) Exercise Cooperative Challenge 95. conducted in the 

Czech Republic in September 1995, involved the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, as 

the framework headquarters of a multinational peacekeeping force that had the mission of 

establishing and monitoring a zone of separation between warring factions. 

4. The Task Force Able Sentry (TFAS) rotations, which began in March 1993 and ended 

in February 1999, placed a battalion task force along the Serbian-Macedonian border as 

part of the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force (previously, the United Nations 

Protective Force) operation. Battalion task forces from V Corps assumed the mission on 

179-day tours of duty. Characteristically, the task forces were drawn from mechanized 

infantry battalions. In the course of 1996, the demands for infantry forces in Bosnia meant 

that dismounted tank battalions began to assume the TFAS mission. Through the time of 

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, TFAS deployments were: 
87

Deployment Date/Unit: 

-6 January 1994/ Task Force 1-6 Infantry 

-13 June 1994 / Task Force 2-15 Infantry 

-8 December 1994/ Task Force 3-5 Cavalry 

-20 May 1995/ Task Force 3-12 Infantry 

-1 November 1995/ Task Force 1-15 Infantry 

-30 April 1996/ Task Force 2-63 Armor 

By comparison, the maneuver units initially assigned to Task Force Eagle included 3-5 

Cavalry and 4-67 Armor in 1st Brigade, and 4-12 Infantry and 2-68 Armor in 2d Brigade. 

5. The Area Support Group (ASG) is the brigade echelon of community command, each 

commanding two or more Base Support Battalions (BSB). These headquarters are roughly 

comparable to the Military Community and Military Sub-Communities that existed 

prior to the implementation of the USAREUR Community Command Plan on 1 October 

1991. That plan explicitly relieved tactical commanders of all responsibilities for routine 

community administration. 

6. Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, eds., Getting to Yes: Negotiating 

Agreement Without Giving In, 2d ed. (New York: 

Houghton Muffin, 1992). 

7. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

8. Major General (later General) Montgomery C. Meigs, Commanding General, 1st 

Infantry Division, commanded the covering force from 1st Infantry Division that entered 

Bosnia to assume the mission while the 1st Armored Division redeployed through 

Hungary. Subsequently, General Meigs commanded 1st Infantry Division forces assigned 

to Operation JOINT GUARD in Bosnia, extending into 1997. 

89

Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Milford, Assistant Chief 

of Staff, G1, Task Force Victory, Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Dr. Charles E. Kirkpatrick, Command Historian, V Corps, 5 

February 1996, at Wiesbaden Air Base, Germany

Q. Sir, would you begin by discussing the creation of Task Force Victory?

A. It was about the first part of November, 1995 when Lieutenant General 

Abrams1

 recognized the need to provide command and control for all of the nondeploying units and the rear detachments of deploying units. At the same time, 

we needed to provide structure to USAREUR Forward and ensure that the Corps 

was able to focus its attention as a planning staff for USAREUR Forward. In that 

context, Task Force Victory would be the executor of planning that would come 

from the Corps headquarters. There is a briefing slide that I will give you that 

speaks specifically to that point and shows the relationship between USAREUR 

Forward, the Corps Main, which is supervised by Colonel(P) (promotable) Casey,2

the Task Force Victory, commanded by Major General Yates,3

 and 3d Infantry 

Division, commanded by Major General Meigs.4

 All of this information is pretty 

well encapsulated in the TF Victory command briefing, as well. 

The document that you would need to get that defines the Task Force Victory 

mission is the operations order that was developed as V Corps OPORD 4105. 

Specifically, FRAGO 24 established TF Victory, effective 2300Z on 15 December 

1995. The FRAGO gives the Commanding General’s intent and the TF structure, 

missions, and subordinate units, as well as reporting requirements for units 

subordinate to TF Victory.

Q. It appears that the bulk of the Task Force Victory comes from V Corps Artillery 

(VCA). You were the G1 at V Corps Artillery for some time, weren’t you? 

A. That’s right. I came to V Corps Artillery in August of 1994. 

The Task Force Victory staff is comprised mainly of V Corps Artillery augmented 

by some of the 3d COSCOM staff that did not deploy forward, some of the 

COSCOM CONUS Augmentation staff, and part of the V Corps staff. That was 

the challenge initially, to ensure that there was enough staff structure to support 

the mission requirements that Task Force Victory was given. A lot of that implies 

that we still leverage off of those on the Corps staff who did not deploy and who 

have more of a functional need to be back here anyway. They support TF Victory 

in various functional areas such as G1, SJA, RM, those kinds of functional areas...

surgeons too. Colonel Lam5

 is dual-hatted as the Corps surgeon and the TF Victory 

surgeon. Initially the challenge was building a document - a Table of Distribution 

and Allowances - that assured there was sufficient staffing to meet the mission 

requirements.
90

You can see that every position is still not filled but this document is out as a basis 

for additional augmentation, either from the active component, support from other 

staff headquarters, or from the reserves. We are still in a period where there are 

more missions than people. We are probably looking toward getting augmentation 

from the reserves and have worked a message through Corps to USAREUR asking 

for augmentation. Our specific concern is our Emergency Operations Center, the 

heart and soul of our organization in terms of daily operations. That’s where we 

keep our fingers on the pulse of what’s going on down range and meeting the 

command’s expectations of this headquarters. 

Q. What difficulties did you encounter as you set up the headquarters? 

A. From my perspective, this didn’t go as smoothly as it could have. While 

there were mission statements given, there were varying understandings of those 

mission statements. The understanding at V Corps Artillery was clear but the 

understanding of the roles and responsibilities and expectations of TF Victory were 

not, I think, as well understood in other organizations. I think it became something 

of an education process. It was not that a signal was sent and it was a confusing 

signal. It is just that it took time for the signal to be fully sent. 

In the meantime, if you are at the source of the signal and have been given the 

mission, the responsibilities are clear to you. In doing the coordination with the 

COSCOM and the Corps staff, though, there remained questions. Would the task 

force headquarters be in the V Corps Artillery building or the COSCOM? Those 

things had to be worked through and as usual, personalities got involved. To the 

extent that those personalities are in agreement or clash, you have difficulties that 

have to be resolved. 

A task force is difficult to stand up, I think, because its mission, by its nature, is 

foreign to all who become a part of it. It is not business as usual. There is not a 

standard MTOE (Modified Table of Organization and Equipment) structure that is 

already defined. There haven’t been a series of documents to which you can refer 

to answer questions, you know. 

Q. Was it helpful that the bulk of the staff come from one headquarters? 

A. That, I think did help us, considerably in terms of having worked with each 

other before. We all had an idea of the competencies that the individuals brought 

along with them and the working relationships that already existed really helped. 

You might say that this could also hinder things because the expectations of that 

group were pre-established and the method that the group is accustomed to use 

in working through problems may not be an appropriate method to use for the 

problems the task force finds at hand. V Corps Artillery, back in June of 1994, was 

still involved in deep battle and in the World War II Commemorations.
91

We have basically been involved in quite a number of different things than just 

running the Corps artillery. They all involved the basic concepts of staff planning, 

coordination, execution, follow-up, and after action review. Maybe that’s the reason 

that the Corps artillery staff was selected to become the task force staff. We have 

done a wide range of things in the past that call for the quick grouping of people for 

a particular mission and for a short duration of time. We were accustomed to doing 

the planning, executing it, reporting back, and preparing for the next mission. That 

might be the background for our selection. 

Q. You moved over essentially all of the VCA staff? 

A. Lock, stock, and barrel. 

Q. So who is running VCA right now? 

A. Well, as a matter of fact, I am still the V Corps Artillery Gl. The VCA staff 

really just added more requirements. We did not divest ourselves of any of our 

mission requirements. Let me make that clear. We have dropped no missions and 

can’t afford to let the quality of staff work decrease for VCA. I like to think that 

we are just doing a lot more with less and I think that if you ask anybody along the 

ramp here, they’ll tell you that we are working a tempo that . . . well, there’s no 

doubt that it’s not the same tempo that they’re working at Corps. We didn’t hand 

off our staff mission to 41st Field Artillery Brigade. We still have staff proponency 

for V Corps Artillery and anything that happens in V Corps Artillery. Now, 41st 

Brigade is the executing agent for anything that V Corps Artillery is asked to do. 

We have deployed A Battery, 25th Field Artillery, to Tuzla and that unit belongs to 

41st FA (Field Artillery) Brigade. But we have also deployed some soldiers out of 

Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, V Corps Artillery.

The point is that, as V Corps Artillery G1, I still have the responsibility to monitor 

officer and enlisted strength within V Corps Artillery, to report USR (Unit Status 

Report) for V Corps Artillery, to manage all the ratings and reports of survey and all 

the administrative things that have to do with V Corps Artillery. The expectation 

is that I will continue to do all these things. The same holds for the other staff 

sections. In those instances when the commander of the V Corps Artillery is at 

USAREUR Forward, Colonel Maples6

 acts as VCA commander. 

Q. With these organizational issues in mind, would you then talk about what you 

see as the major actions the task force has undertaken to date?

A. One of the major actions for me was to work through the casualty notification 

process and how it was going to work during the deployment. Peacetime procedures 

were clearly in place, clearly defined from the moment a casualty occurs through 

notification and subsequent follow-up by the casualty assistance officer and so 

forth. Early on, the CINC (Commander in Chief) and Lieutenant General Abrams 
92

gave guidance that they wanted the tactical commanders involved in the process. I 

think they did that for two reasons. They recognized that commanders are always 

involved anyway and you can’t divorce yourself from that, it’s going to happen 

anyway but also, they recognized that the speed of information flow these days is 

such that if the commander is not involved in the notification process, then he is 

going to read about it, find out about things the hard way. They would be unable 

to influence events in any way and they need to make sure that, as a commander, 

they know about what is going on. 

We started with a process that laid out a concept that went from a purely 

communication channel exercise that ran from the PERSCOM to ASG (Army 

Support Group), to BSB (Base Support Battalion), to unit, to one that was really a 

dual flow of information that shared information between PERSCOM (Personnel 

Command) Forward and TF Victory and between the various ASGs and the 

brigades. At unit level, you probably already had that exchange because the source 

of the casualty notification officer is the tactical unit. Given that we pulled out a lot 

of the structure of the Corps, particularly in the 1st Armored Division area, we are 

in a lot of instances left with rear detachment commanders who are inexperienced 

and junior in grade. 

So, we saw a need to modify the structure and reporting sequence a little bit, not 

much, just to put a bit of oversight on the tactical side. We wanted to make sure 

that sufficient supervision was there, if needed, and that adequate resources were 

available to ensure that the casualty notification was done properly. For me, this 

was a great hurdle, because it represented change. I have to take the current system, 

which everyone perceived to be OK. You know; “Hey, why change something 

that’s not broken?” After all, it works in peacetime and I am required to change it 

without having the benefit of having a failure prove that the change was needed. 

That first casualty was not going to be a case of “See, I told you, now we need to fix 

it!” It became a matter of convincing everybody up front that the changes needed 

to be made. 

I think that everybody now recognizes that this was a good thing to do. These 

new procedures are embodied, basically, in a series of briefings that we gave. The 

next step is to embody it in a USAREUR Regulation as something to be done, 

procedurally, whenever we have this sort of situation in the future. The next issue 

for me was the business of replacement operations. There has just not been much 

guidance coming down the pike to help me execute these operations. You cannot 

expect the staff that is going to execute to be the staff that does the planning. There 

is clearly a purpose for planning, so that you can try to work through as many of 

the problems as you can before you are asked to execute. Doing both is definitely 

a challenge. You discover that, if you try to do both, you don’t have the time to do 

planning at all and the execution is flawed because there was no planning.
93

Q. What was the magnitude of the personnel flow? 

A. I think the initial personnel projection depends on your frame of reference. 

There was a projection for the theater. There was a projection for Corps. The 

difference in what actually was projected versus what actually showed up is about 

1,000 soldiers less. I really can’t say that the projection was based on any sort 

of sound analysis. I don’t know. I can only tell you that there was about 1,000 

soldier difference and so that ripples through the whole personnel system for the 

deployment.

There is the phenomenon of personnel who do not report in a particular month 

being carried over to the next month and that method differs by headquarters. 

Corps assumes that the soldier will simply appear next month. PERSCOM doesn’t 

do that in its projections. The upshot is that I have to be careful whose number I 

am using in personnel projections. Another piece of this is recognizing the need to 

flow soldiers in, get them prepositioned and trained, and then get them down range 

to a fox hole position. Soldiers normally come with families. The preponderance 

of soldiers is married now. There has been talk that about 50% of soldiers are 

married. Well, in a recent Soldiers magazine article, I read that the figure is as high 

as 63% of the volunteer force soldiers who are married. This sort of makes sense. 

Yet, to this day, we are not able to capture whether the preponderance of soldiers 

that deployed did or did not come to Germany with family members.

My view, as a systems kind of guy, is that there ought to be some data base out 

there, and there probably is and I just don’t know about it, that shows the profile on 

this population. From that profile, we could determine that this won’t be a problem 

because most of the soldiers will travel deferred, with families remaining in the 

States. Or this will be a problem, because most of the soldiers will be attempting 

to bring their families along with them. Therefore, how much time do you allow 

that soldier to establish himself and go down range with the right kind of morale 

that you associate with a soldier who has had the time to get his family set before 

you ask him to deploy? Then you have to crank in the required training. 

Q. In the replacement business, you are dealing not only with the active force but 

also with specific reserve augmentations targeted for specific Corps units and then 

other reserve call-ups and individual ready reservists...

A. That’s the RSOI piece of it; Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and 

Integration. 

Q. Then there’s (sic) the involuntary 90-day extensions for Corps soldiers...

A. Yes, there was an involuntary Foreign Service Tour Extension of 90 days for 

soldiers who had a DEROS (Date Eligible for Return from Overseas) between 1 

January and 1 April, 1996. The last guy, who had a DEROS on 31 March, will 
94

be gone by 30 June. The regular component soldiers we are getting in now are 

slated to fill the slots that will be vacated by those guys serving involuntary FSTEs 

(Foreign Service Tour Extension) and the shortfall that we had anyway. The 

division did not deploy out of here at the percentage that it really needed so there 

were guys who were immediately flown over on Temporary Change of Station to 

fill key vacancies that existed within Task Force Eagle. 

Then there were reserve augmentees who were flown over to further augment the 

Task Force. Then there are the individual mobilization augmentees that are always 

there to fill vacancies. 

There was a real effort to push soldiers over here to fill Task Force Eagle to the 

level that it needed to reach but while recognizing that there were force caps in 

theater that we could not exceed and that we had to monitor.

We worked with the USAREUR DCSPER (Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel) 

and the V Corps AG (Adjutant General) to work through this process. I think that 

while there may have been, and I emphasize may have been, a lot of planning, the 

planning that was done was too conceptual. The assumption was that there was 

going to be an automatic linkage between this conceptual plan and the detailed lug 

work that has to be carried out at our level to get the job done.

You can have the strategic level of plan and the tactical level of execution, if I 

can put it into these terms but you also need the operational level between them to 

make the linkage and keep the process from becoming disjointed. The guy who 

has to do the work is looking for specific instructions. The guy who is thinking 

strategically is thinking; “Well, 21st TAACOM is going to do thus and such.” 

That’s fine but then you have to answer the questions of where, how, with whom 

and with what assets.

The RSOI piece that 21st TAACOM initially worked was a great conceptual 

plan but the plan in and of itself didn’t really speak to who was actually going to 

do what until we realized that we had to devise some serious structure and place 

responsibilities on particular organizations. You have to pin the rose, as we like 

to say. We had that meeting in the first week in January on things that I believe 

ought to have been done much earlier so that everyone would have known, well in 

advance, who would assign sponsorships to units, who would do this, who would 

do that. Instead, we did these things at the eleventh hour. I think that the BSBs, for 

the most part, were brought into the picture and recognized some of the concerns, 

when Task Force Victory stood up.

General Yates had a meeting with the ASG commanders where we gave them 

a briefing on Task Force Victory and its mission. I think that it was at that initial 

meeting that they realized that there were some real issues that impacted upon 

their areas of responsibility; force protection, housing, replacing the manpower 
95

that no longer existed in some military communities (particularly Bad Kreuznach 

and other 1st Armored Division communities) for all those “housekeeping” tasks 

the ASGs are responsible for. 

I think this was a real eye-opener for some of the ASG commanders. I think there 

was probably also discussion at the CINC and DCINC level concerning the impact 

of the deployment. There is an RSOI document that exists. It lays out, from that 

meeting that we had during the first week of January, the responsibilities for who 

was going to do what. The Corps AG published the document and the FRAGOs 

that stemmed from it came from Corps. We are about to wrap up RSOI now and 

I think it went really well, from everyone’s comments (I mean the leadership), 

across the board. 

Now, we’re getting ready to go into the matter of individual replacements. It’s 

a similar mechanism but you are talking about getting the individual soldier down 

range with all the appropriate gear and training and with his family properly 

situated. We are finding that this is a lot more difficult to do. I am pushing for a 

meeting involving the Corps AG and the PERSCOM to nail down the systemic 

mechanism that is going to get this done. I think I have worked my piece through 

in terms of how we are going to get information from subordinate units and 

ensuring that we stay aware of who is ready to deploy and getting them to the port 

of embarkation but the other pieces of that are; “Now what?”. We have him to the 

POE (Port of Embarkation). Who picks up the part when the soldier gets down 

range? PERSCOM has recognized that as one of their responsibilities. At this 

moment, I still do not see that clearly defined; a mechanism there, ready to work. 

I’m sure the process has been defined but eventually you have to go from definition 

of a process to the mechanism being there, waiting to work.

We are working on air flow and other similar issues now. 

Another issue that is sort of linked to casualty notification is the greater problem 

of accounting for people who leave the theater and subsequently return, just that 

natural phenomenon of people working their way back here without anyone 

knowing about it. That’s not a major problem, although it is a concern that 

commanders have to watch. We have worked that through a series of briefings to 

make sure that commanders are aware that they have to control this at their level 

and keep TF Victory in the loop for information. 

Another area that involves accounting of soldiers is Medevac, evacuating 

soldiers back to Landstuhl and the tracking of those soldiers. We have involved 

the chaplain in that and a Medical Service Corps officer that has augmented our 

staff from COSCOM. We contact units and make sure that they are aware that they 

have a soldier who has been sent back on Medevac and telling them when they can 

expect the soldier back or that he won’t be coming back. 
96

Q. This raises the question of routine personnel operations SIDPERS (Standard 

Installation and Division Personnel Reporting System).

A. That has been a real challenge for the AG. I don’t have a SIDPERS data base 

here but I am helping the AG at the Corps level to get a good data base by doing 

the on-the-ground reconciliation of who the units say is there in theater and then 

comparing that with the existing data base. In the latter part of November, units 

probably that were preoccupied with getting deployed probably didn’t spend a lot 

of time making sure that SIDPERS was being done well. That’s just a fact of life. 

They had other things to do. SIDPERS is one of things too that you have to do 

daily or you can get out of tolerance quickly. 

The last thing I saw, and the Corps AG can give you specifics, the Corps was 

out of tolerance by a vast number. We have taken that mountain down quite a bit 

through our efforts. We have sort of applied the hammer to units to get us accurate 

reports. In peacetime, this is important. With a deployment, it is crucial. Now, 

this data is the basis for analysis in helping us determine the loss profile from the 

task force. First, you have to know where the guy actually is. The only way to 

determine this is through SIDPERS and this information is absolutely essential in 

validating that we haven’t exceeded the personnel cap in the theater. 

Q. Let me ask you for your thoughts on the lessons you have learned so far in 

this operation. I don’t want to put words in your mouth but I believe on the basis 

of what you have said, that I understand you to be saying that the planning and 

executing responsibilities, through USAREUR, Corps, and the task forces that 

have been created, were probably not clearly enough delineated at the start? 

A. In my opinion, that is true for Task Force Victory. I can’t say how it might 

apply to the other task forces. In general terms, there are some things we ought 

to take away from this operation. You need to be conscious of the institution’s 

reluctance to change.

For most people, there is a tendency to think that things will be business as usual. 

That has been one of our greatest obstacles. Until something happens that causes 

one to think there is a need to make an adjustment, there is a tendency not to adjust. 

I mean to say, there is a real tendency to stay in the reactive mode, rather than 

looking at the situation and trying to anticipate requirements. Yet, recognizing that 

the task force was really in a state of constant self-definition as we went along, we 

still found people and organizations entrenched in the belief that Operation JOINT 

ENDEAVOR would not step outside of what they had always done. Fighting that 

resistance to ensure that what needed to be done was going to be done was often 

the need. I certainly found that to be the case in setting up the casualty notification 

process.
97

Initially, naively, I might have thought that this was an easy problem. Of 

course people would recognize that commanders should be involved but that was 

not the mind set that I ran into as I started to introduce people into the notion 

of commander’s involvement. So, I would say, that it is necessary early on to 

recognize that general resistance to change. You have to work that aggressively, 

as early as possible. 

Then there is the question of aggressively going in looking for the plan as early 

as possible, in everything you have to do as an executor. When you look at a 

process, such as replacement operations, and you find the concept articulated, then 

you have to start right away to work the problem from that point down to your 

level. If you are going to execute a mission, a concept isn’t enough. You need the 

commander’s intent and a clear plan. 

I found that clearly in casualty notification. In that area, I found more clear 

guidance up front than anywhere else, especially at Corps level. When I understood 

that General Abrams wanted definite involvement of commanders in the process, 

that was clear enough for me. I knew then what my charter was and what lines 

I needed to draw. I knew the tactical chain of command and it became an easy 

problem. When he said that and the DCINC endorsed it, that made things quite 

clear and easy to understand. 

I learned that I needed, within my section, to demand more of individuals. There 

weren’t any additional resources to rely upon. Very pleasantly, I found that my 

people responded to the challenge. I was augmented with a couple of additional 

people, one officer and another NCO but the soldiers who have always been a part 

of this section recognized the expectations and met the challenge. 

Notes

1. Lieutenant General John N. Abrams, V Corps Commanding General.

2. Colonel(P) George Casey, V Corps Chief of Staff.

3. Major General Walter H. Yates, V Corps Deputy Commanding General.

4. Major General Montgomery Meigs, Commanding General, 3d Infantry Division.

5. Colonel David Lam, M.D., V Corps Surgeon.

6. Colonel Michael Maples, 41st Field Artillery Brigade commander.

99

Interview with Lieutenant Colonel David K. Swindell, Executive 

Officer, 41st Field Artillery Brigade (Babenhausen, Germany) and 

Acting Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, Task Force Victory, Operation 

JOINT ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Dr. Charles E. Kirkpatrick, Command Historian, V Corps, 5 

April 1996, at Wiesbaden Air Base, Germany

Q. Sir, would you please begin by discussing what you know of the rationale for 

creation of Task Force Victory? 

A. I’ll tell you what I can on this. I’ll give you the perspective of the XO (Executive 

Officer) of the brigade that is subordinate to the Corps artillery headquarters that 

is performing this mission. 

We kind of lost our headquarters. At the time, we had gone to Exercise 

MOUNTAIN SHIELD II in September (1995). We were doing a fire control 

exercise to train up the TAB (Target Acquisition Battery) for the then-looming 

extraction mission to extract UN peacekeepers from Gorazde and some other 

places, using a strike force out of SETAF (Southern European Task Force) and an 

attack group from 11th Aviation Brigade. 

We went back in October for Exercise MOUNTAIN EAGLE, where we did 

the fire control exercises for both the division and the two brigade combat teams 

and validated the other two radar batteries for the mission (C Battery, 333d Field 

Artillery and A Battery, 25th Field Artillery). That was a combined effort between 

V Corps Artillery Headquarters and the 41st Brigade HHB (Headquarters and 

Headquarters Battery). The 1st Battalion, 27th Field Artillery was of course being 

validated itself. At the time, it had two firing batteries in the troop list. The third 

unit was basically used to OC (Observe/Control) the other two. 

So, everybody was very busy in the field. We came out of the field in midNovember. Shortly thereafter, I got an e-mail from Andy Wynarsky1

 telling me 

he was in the Century 21 business. He was showing General Yates2

 some houses 

at Wiesbaden because they were going to move the Corps rear headquarters to 

Wiesbaden Air Base. He told me that the plan was to run support operations out of 

the Corps rear headquarters. I guess, I’m not really sure, but I guess it’s because the 

COSCOM (Corps Support command) is located here. That was the first inkling we 

had down in Babenhausen that our higher headquarters was going to be assigned 

yet another nonstandard mission. 

It in fact came to fruition while we were busy with augmentees and crossleveling and getting A Battery, 25th FA (Field Artillery) ready to go to Bosnia. On 

around 15 December, we got A-25 out the chute and found that VCA (V Corps 

Artillery) had in fact locked its doors. The staff had come over to this building in 
100

the COSCOM headquarters and was starting to set up shop to take control of the 

Corps separate brigades and the remaining rear detachments out of 1st Armored 

Division. The concept at the time, in terms of command and control versus liaison 

and oversight, wasn’t real clear. At one time, we were getting a vision that we 

were, for example, going to form a brigade. This was on about 20 December when 

we were trying to hash this out, at the same time that we were receiving units in 

from the States, we were RSOI-ing (Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and 

Integration) units. I think we got our first one in on the 23rd but at one time, there 

was a plan saying that the 41st FA Brigade would consist of 22d Signal Brigade 

(-), basically the 32d and 17th Signal Battalions; 3-12 Infantry in Baumholder; and 

1-1 Cavalry Rear Detachment. 

There is a diagram that showed 41st Brigade as a combined arms brigade with 

artillery, infantry, signal, and cavalry. There were various proposals staffed back 

and forth. In the end, the 1st Armored Division, for some very good reasons, wanted 

to retain the rear detachments under division command and control. The Corps 

decided to exercise oversight over those detachments with an organization called 

Task Force Victory. That is the organization that evolved. So 3-12 Infantry is still 

part of 1st Armored Division and Lieutenant Colonel Gene Kamena still reports to 

General Nash3

 but he has essentially an intermediate rater, or an oversight, here in 

TF Victory. 

The 41st Brigade was given oversight over 22d Signal Brigade, since it’s just 

down the street. Mainly, what we do is all the O-6 (Colonel) work they need done, 

such as awards. Colonel Maples4

 has the authority to handle all that as the first O-6 

in the chain-of-command. It makes life easier for them in that regard, although, 

having a lieutenant colonel there, it turns out that they really didn’t need too much 

help. 

Some other units have very low levels of leadership and it has taken a combination 

of people just doing the right things, as well as the structure of the task force, in 

order to make the right things happen. For example, in a kind of an odd situation but 

one that makes a lot of sense, there is the case of the 77th Maintenance Company, 

stationed at Babenhausen. They are part of the 18th Corps Support Battalion, 16th 

Corps Support Group of the COSCOM. They all deployed. Their rear detachment 

is at Babenhausen and we essentially exercise ‘good neighbor’ oversight over the 

remaining people in the rear detachment, although you won’t find that relationship 

written down anywhere. There are a number of those pragmatic relationships out 

there. What is on the diagram is the TF Victory organization, as you have there. 

I came up to this organization, I believe, on 5 January (1996) because Colonel 

Pieper5

 had to go to the Pre-Command Course. So I was up here for three weeks in 

January. As we speak, it’s 5 April and I’ve been here for two weeks with another 

week to go because Ken is gone again for his second session of PCC. So I’ve had 

two tours here acting as the G3. 
101

Q. Would you talk about logistical sustainment missions of the task force? 

A. We get the emergencies. The standard stuff is all worked now through 21st 

TAACOM and we have nothing to do with normal Class IX (repair parts) issues, 

bottled water, or stuff going down range. In the initial part back in January, the 

system wasn’t set up. I literally, personally, put stuff on pallets and got it to RheinMain (Air Base), put in on a plane, and sent it to Tuzla. That continues to be the 

case for emergencies. We monitor the situation.

The purpose of the task force, though, is maintenance and sustainment in the 

Central Region. We have the ability to respond when there’s an urgent request for 

a widget, send a captain out to get one but this is normal 21st TAACOM business 

and I think that the chain there is better and better established, to the extent that we 

are getting out of that business. 

Q. Any comments on personnel flow? 

A. Colonel Milford, the G1 for the Corps Artillery, handles all the normal G1 

functions for the task force; passing folks down range, personnel actions, and 

assignments with subordinate units. For the task force, the issue is managing 

replacements and knowing who is in the rear detachments. We have established a 

huge data base to track replacement flow. We are essentially the “manifesters” for 

people within the Corps to get on the buses and go down range. We are also the 

gate keepers of the CMTC (Combat Maneuver Training Center) course schedule6

which is the qualification to go down range. The big logistics issue that we do 

run for the operation, on a daily basis, is the OCIE (Organizational Clothing and 

Individual Equipment) issue for the replacements. Scott Coltrane7

 handles all the 

problems that crop up. If a size 19 boot has to be made for a soldier, he is the guy 

who makes that happen. The ASGs (Area Support Group) are in the business of 

ordering stuff and issuing it at the CIF (Central Issue Facility) but we get involved 

in the special cases. 

Q. Obviously, looking at the training calendar for the forthcoming year, you have 

a full plate in terms of operations and training here in Germany... 

A. That’s right. Let me talk a little about operations, first down range, and then 

here in the Central Region. We respond to an enormous range of taskings and 

missions that come down. Today, for example, as we talk, there is a draft FRAG 

(fragmentary) order that came in last night that will potentially task us for eight 

mechanics to go down and support maintenance at the Seventh Army Training 

Center-Forward range in Hungary. As General Yates predicted, they are going to 

have to set up the maintenance down there. 

I am working a mission today to provide a major to take over as detachment 

commander for Operation PROVIDE COMFORT, an out of sector mission that 

we still have.8
102

One task force brigade, the 69th Air Defense, deployed a battalion9 to Saudi 

Arabia in Operation PROVIDE COVER. 

They are doing an alert here in two days to test Operation VIGIL ALERT, a test 

that will take the personnel from two more batteries here in the Central Region, fly 

them down to Saudi Arabia, and have them fall in on prepositioned equipment in 

a readiness test.

We have the Beirut Air Bridge, an out of sector mission. 

Some people in the task force, some engineers, are supporting Operation ABLE 

SENTRY in Macedonia. The battalion comes out of 1st Infantry Division for this 

rotation. 

We have provided personnel to augment various shortages as they occur and 

missions as they crop up. For example, we have a captain from the Corps Fire 

Support Element who is presently the briefing officer at the Joint Visitors’ Bureau 

down range. My brigade commander, Colonel Maples, is at the moment the acting 

chief of staff at USAREUR (US Army-Europe) (Forward) Headquarters. So we 

have had a lot of missions from a lot of different units that have been tasked for 

everything from mechanics and cooks to officers to set up cells, or personnel to do 

whatever. 

The 12th Aviation Brigade is going to send another platoon of UH-60 aircraft 

down to run visitor support. We have a warning order to do that. 

The 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, is going to send an airmobile quick reaction 

force. They finish CMTC training this week and depart on 8 April. We have to get 

those guys ready to go. They are going to take a dismounted company away from 

their Bradleys. 

We sent the Allied Mobile Force-Light (AMF-L) and we are going to augment 

part of that total of 100 going down, with 82 from C/3-12. 

We have sent the Allied Mobile Force on a couple of missions. When I was here 

in January, the great push was to take the platoon, get it out of Mannheim, send 

it to Zagreb, and onward to Sarajevo to perform security missions. They were 

pulled off of that so that they could go on a NATO exercise called ADVENTURE 

EXPRESS up in Belgium. So those forces were substituted. Now we are pulling 

these 18 guys out of ADVENTURE EXPRESS, just finishing up on 29 March, and 

they will deploy to the ISB (Intermediate Staging Base) on 8 April and they had to 

go to CMTC in between. 

We are also swapping out a cavalry troop; a troop out of 11th Aviation to swap 

out with C Troop, 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry so that 1-1 Cav can begin to send their 
103

helicopters back to Fort Hood for a modernization program. So the task force here 

has operational missions. We continue to provide forces down range, either units 

or individuals and we continue to provide units and individuals to support out of 

sector missions. We haven’t talked about anything in the Central Region yet. 

The other mission of the task force is to continue to provide mission support in 

the central region. The first part of that is to continue to RSOI units. My brigade did 

thirteen. We just finished up E Battery, 161st Field Artillery,10 a target acquisition 

battery, and may get another one. That involved receiving them at the air base, 

bringing them to Babenhausen, filling their logistics shortages, sending them to 

CMTC, bringing them back, taking them to Vilseck, installing SINCGARS radios, 

and then going on a live-fire validation exercise at Grafenwohr, which we set up 

and OC. 

We did that for the 28th Infantry Division fire support element, out of 

Pennsylvania as well. That’s a mission to get units down range and some of those 

popped up. We had no idea in January that we were going to get the FSE (Fire 

Support Element). We had no idea in February that we were going to get E/161. 

As we finish up March and go into April, the only RSOI mission that I know of that 

we are going to get is another major coming out of Kansas to go down to Sarajevo 

but I am told there are other units coming. Toward the end of summer, as the 270-

day active duty terms for the reserve component units expire, there will probably 

be another round of deployments to sponsor. That’s a lot of work. 

The units that remain here have normal missions. Maintain training readiness. 

For example, 1-27 FA went to Grafenwohr in March and shot rockets, like they 

normally do. We have exercises to perform.

We have the Partnership for Peace exercises.

Colonel Maples and I were drafted as OCs to go to Fort Leavenworth for the 

Ukrainian exercise with 3d Brigade of 1st Infantry Division that was held there. 

The Partnership for Peace exercise is important, and we have the joint contact team 

programs and the normal stuff of doing missions. 

We are doing a salute for Colonel Casey11 when he gets promoted here, in a few 

days. All of that normal work going to gunnery, going to CMTC, normally keeps 

everybody very busy continues. I mean, we would still consider ourselves busy 

even if Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR wasn’t going on and we do all these things 

probably to a higher standard because you are going to gunnery for a reason now. 

Then there are all the activities that go on in the rear detachments, family support 

groups and solving community problems and running replacements. It is a big 

job in a rear detachment, run by a lieutenant, or maybe just a sergeant, to take 

people in, get them ready to go, get their OCIE, get their families settled, get them 

in quarters, get their POV squared away, get them trained up, and then get them 

down range. 
104

Q. That’s a lot of stress for the soldiers coming in as replacements too, particularly 

if they are junior, young, married, and have never been to Germany before. It’s 

especially hard on the young families and that seems to be a recipe for generating 

problems that the rear detachments have to solve? 

A. That’s right. There are a couple of things we have done differently in this 

operation. It’s not quite the same as in DESERT STORM, when VII Corps 

deployed. We have not put a stop-loss on, so there is a substantial replacement 

flow. In the personnel business, the theater put on a 90-day involuntary extension, 

which has now expired. Basically, they kept soldiers from leaving, January through 

March and they accelerated people who were already on orders, so that people due 

in during March, for example, moved up to January. If you had orders to report in 

February, you also moved up to January and if you had orders for January, well it 

was no kidding, you’re going in January. The Army moved up the personnel flow 

and we got 4,400 and some replacements reporting into theater in the month of 

January. We began the process of getting those folks down range. 

Now, of course, not all of those soldiers went to the Corps and not all of them 

went to the deployed forces but a lot of people came in to help fill out the units 

because the units still here had been levied for TCS orders to help fill out the 

deploying units. All this kind of happens at the rear detachment. A new soldier 

shows up at Rhein-Main and the rear detachment has to go and pick him up. That’s 

the first mission when a replacement comes in. Then you get him a room, a weapon, 

and get him into training. Now he’s yours. You have to equip him, get him a CIF 

issue, and get him scheduled for training at CMTC. Then he has to get housing, get 

his POV and household goods and pay straight, the family oriented and integrated 

into the family support group. You have to solve all the soldier’s problems and 

then you schedule him for manifesting and drive him to Rhein-Main and put him 

on the bus that will take him to the ISB. That’s a fair amount of work. 

The rear detachments also have the responsibility for receiving all the ETS 

(Ending Term Service) and PCS (Permanent Change of Station) personnel. Now 

we’re seeing that flow start, again. A soldier scheduled to leave on 5 January 

was extended and is now scheduled to leave today, 90-day involuntary extension. 

Thirty days prior to that, on 5 March, the soldier came back to Germany, to his 

unit’s rear detachment. The rear detachment is responsible for getting the soldier 

out-processed and on to his new duty station in CONUS. That’s another load. 

Then any of these people who have medical or legal problems or personnel issues 

all have to be worked by the rear detachments. They’re pretty busy. They tell us 

they’re busy. I had Sergeant Stewart12 from the 130th Engineers up here the other 

day, cross-leveling information. We were trying to figure out how many folks he’s 

got, how many replacements, what problems they have, and what their delays are, 

because the commander wants to know. 
105

We were talking about the R&R (Rest and Recuperation) program that’s about to 

start up and what the responsibilities of the rear detachments will be to track that. 

He said; “Sir, I need some R&R. Send me to Bosnia. They can come here for two 

weeks. I’m going there for two weeks because I don’t know if I can do this any 

more.” It’s like I was saying to you the other day. For the troops in Bosnia, every 

day is Groundhog Day. But for the soldiers here, every day is a different challenge 

and they are all difficult. He was pretty stressed out. They are doing a good job. 

I think we are fortunate, up to this point, that we have not had any major incidents 

but sometimes we think we’re living on the edge. 

Q. What they are doing is pretty transparent to USAREUR (Forward)?

A. Yes, but that’s OK. I think that, if we work hard and do our work well, they 

should have no need to know what we are doing. It should just work. That’s 

why we set up the task force. The fact that the Corps commander is having to 

pay attention to replacements and is having questions about replacements is very 

disturbing to us, because it tells us we are not doing all we ought to be doing. He 

isn’t happy with the situation and has to spend time on something that he shouldn’t 

have to spend time on but it is tougher, I think, than everyone realizes. 

Q. Well, you are working without established relationships. It’s a new organization? 

A. That’s right and I can illustrate the point. When I first got here in January, I got 

a call asking what we were going to do to provide Bradley OCs for the 1st Infantry 

Division gunnery cycle at Graf. I knew what he was talking about, because I have 

been on the staff at 7th ATC (Army Training Center) and knew that you must have 

certified master gunners to run qualification on Bradley Table VIII and Table XII. 

I looked around the artillery staff here and there wasn’t anybody who had ever 

been inside a Bradley or had any idea what the requirement was. So how do you 

manage something like that when you don’t have master gunners or aviators or 

any of those guys that the Corps staff has to provide the expertise in situations like 

this? Or, (if) we needed a mechanic, well, where were all the mechanics in Task 

Force Victory? 

When we started, we didn’t know what Task Force Victory looked like yet and 

didn’t know how many people were going to be in the organization. We had no 

AG (Adjutant General) who could punch out the data to tell us how many MOS 

(Military Occupational Specialty) 63B (wheeled vehicle mechanics) we had. 

Remember, a lot of these organizations are shells of their former selves. Some 

are more or less intact, 4lst Brigade has deployed a section, a battery, and some 

individuals, for example but in some cases, the rear detachment has only five guys, 

because the unit is totally deployed and we have all variations in between. It took 

a while to get a handle on what was out there. 
106

Now we have established relationships. The rear detachment commanders’ 

meeting yesterday, for example, had everybody in the room. That was about the 

third or fourth of those and the relationships and reporting channels are working. 

We have set up an organization that’s up and functioning. 

Q. I’d like to address the question of command relationships, perhaps within the 

context of planning for redeployment. As I understand it, Corps Main headquarters 

is the planning staff for the operation? 

A. Corps Main headquarters is in charge, despite the fact that the task force is 

commanded by a major general and the Corps main is commanded (sic) by a 

promotable colonel. We have some planning activity going on here but we really 

don’t have any planners. That is not the mission of this organization. The command 

briefing slides say that we execute plans. We don’t do very much planning. We 

have to do some planning because no one else is doing it but that is not our function. 

We just haven’t got the staff to do it. The planning that we will get involved in; it 

seems to me, has to do with the transition phase. For example; we are going to start 

bringing a combat battalion out of Bosnia, let’s say in August or September, a tank 

battalion, because we have found that Bradleys are more useful down there. So we 

are going to take a tank battalion home. Where’s it going to go? It’s going to go to 

Baumholder. OK. So we are bringing one of the Baumholder tank battalions back. 

How do we set up the community to receive the soldiers and how do we set up the 

maintenance support system to receive the maintenance load that’s coming back? 

Remember, the tank battalion will be coming back by itself and will have cut 

its ties to the support structure in Bosnia. They are going to start training again. 

In fact, they are going to gunnery within 90 days or so. So we are going to have 

battalions in gunnery at Graf before their sister battalions are back out of Bosnia. I 

think the redeployment is going to take 90 to 120 days. We have to plan that sort of 

support and what 7th Corps Support Group is going to do: parts flow, mechanics, 

DS work and that’s all in addition to the normal things we will have to do such as 

getting TCS personnel back to their parent units, managing the property flow, and 

managing the reception ceremonies, and so on. We have experience with one unit 

redeploying already, SETAF. We’ve got their briefing slides on their ceremonies, 

leave policy, retraining program, and so on. 

Q. It seems that the experience emerging from Operation ABLE SENTRY (Former 

Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) is that it can take a battalion up to six months to 

regain mission capable status because the operations there have so little to do with 

the normal mission of a Bradley battalion or, now, a tank battalion? 

A. I don’t think our experience will be as extreme as that for battalion task forces 

deployed to Macedonia or in the area of maintenance as for units returning from 

DESERT STORM. There will be some skill decay and rebuild necessary but our 
107

situation here is better because we have the 7th ATC range in Hungary, which is 

pretty good. That training program is ongoing and the soldiers will come back 

with recent qualifications on a Bradley or Tank Table VIII. That’s the plan and 

I think the execution will be pretty good. Their missions don’t directly relate to 

Tank Table XII and CMTC training but it’s not that far off either. It’s not like on 

ABLE SENTRY, which is a light infantry mission where the soldiers are away 

from their Bradleys for six months. In Bosnia, the soldiers are with their machines 

and they’re executing battalion operations. I think there’s a much greater crosswalk between what they’re doing and what they would be asked to do in a regional 

conflict. 

The maintenance effort is OK because the soldiers are with their machines, hence 

maintaining them. In my experience, machines that are used are better maintained 

than those that sit in motor pools which is what happens on ABLE SENTRY. 

There are going to be some problems with maintenance when they get back but 

I don’t think that the pace is as great as it was in the desert. We have an ongoing 

maintenance effort in theater that is taking pretty good care of the equipment. 

This is a more deliberate deployment and the soldiers are doing maintenance right 

now as we speak. The Class IX flow is established, we have base camps, and the 

soldiers are pulling services. The climate is harsh and cold, but really, kind of like 

Germany. There isn’t a lot of difference between Graf and where they are serving. 

I mean, there’s a difference between Wiesbaden and Graf. Spring arrives there a 

couple of weeks later. The climate they are in is friendlier to equipment than the 

desert was. 

Q. I note that the COSCOM staff is a full wartime authorization, which means that 

the staff principals are colonels. That means that your subordinate organization has 

staff principals who outrank the TF Victory staff principals by one and sometimes 

two grades. Does that cause any problems? 

A. Colonel Collier,13 the 3d COSCOM G3 (Operations), is a full colonel, right. I 

am a lieutenant colonel and a junior one, at that. The situation caused some initial 

problems but I think they have been worked through. I think that they understand 

their role and they are pretty busy doing what they are doing. They understand that 

the information flows here. I can give orders to 3d COSCOM in my capacity as 

the G3 and they’re not blown off because I am a lieutenant colonel. All orders of 

the G3 are signed “for the commander,” after all. I think that when Colonel Collier 

calls, with a problem, perhaps I answer the phone a little quicker, because he’s a 

full colonel but we also have a better relationship because I can go down to his 

office and drink coffee and talk it over with him. This hasn’t been a big problem. 

The key is that we know the Corps and know Germany and know the operations. 

Expertise is what keeps you in good graces with seniors and they know that we 

have expertise. 
108

Q. Do you retain responsibilities for the unit you come from while you are serving 

on the staff here? 

A. Yes. At the moment, I am running the 41st FA Brigade by remote control but 

with comms links, you can do anything. We have a great e-mail capability here. I 

have MSE (Mobile Subscriber Equipment) on my desk. I can talk to A/2514 better 

from this desk than I can from Babenhausen. I can call Paul Yingling right now 

and talk to him in his HMMWV. It’s pretty amazing. 

It’s the split in focus, more than anything else. You try to keep focused on the 

central region and what you’re doing here but you are constantly jerked back to 

the immediate needs of JOINT ENDEAVOR. It is a very wide focus and if we are 

going to get into trouble, it is going to be because of that. 

Q. How would you summarize the biggest challenges or problems to TF Victory? 

A. I think we’ve talked about the biggest one, defining and then marketing the 

task force and that’s still a problem. Just from my perspective, the guys in my 

brigade will tell me they don’t know what the hell we do up here at Task Force 

Victory. The answer is that they ignore 41st Brigade. Totally ignore it. We aren’t 

on some of the slides. I came up here a couple of weeks ago and complained that 

the brigade had sent replacements to A/25 and we weren’t on their chart. I was told 

that they ignore the brigade because the unit has enough senior leadership down 

there in Babenhausen that things were going OK. They didn’t need to worry about 

the brigade. Well, I put us back on the slide, simply because I wanted the unit 

credited for what it was doing but I understand the task force perspective. The 

need is greater elsewhere. 

Q. What is your opinion, professionally, if not personally, about creating this ad 

hoc organization for this mission as opposed to some other way of accomplishing 

the job? 

A. I think the jury is still out on this thing. I look around at what everybody is 

doing and at what I am doing and I conclude that we are doing some pretty good 

work and it’s clear to me that nobody else wants to do it and it’s work that has to 

get done. At the same time, certainly initially, the relationship with Corps main 

headquarters had been very puzzling to me. At times, the attitude here has been, 

well, if it’s hard, then it’s Task Force Victory’s problem. Even Colonel Ifflander15

has expressed dismay at the Corps staff’s lack of responsibility for things over 

which they ought to have planning responsibility. They sort of dump it on the little 

VCA staff. This is a different operation, run differently and without some of the 

conveniences that we had for DESERT STORM. 

We are running continued replacement operations through the rear detachments. 

We are going to have to receive people back from the deployed areas for ETS 
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and PCS. We have encouraged families to stay in Germany while the soldiers 

are deployed and not go home to the States. We are going to do a lot more things 

back here than perhaps you might do if you just deployed the Corps to the desert 

for a conventional war and it’s going to be an extended operation. This thing ain’t 

(sic) going to go away in three months or six months. We know for sure that this 

is a year deployment and that it might go longer. I suspect that when one looks 

at it in the broader perspective, where the rear detachments are going to have real 

missions that are hard, and are going to have to do this for an extended period of 

time, that you are going to need a structure to put your arms around all of those 

units that are out there. 

At times, it has been easy for the Corps staff to say; “Well, just task it, either to 

the division or to Task Force Victory.” They treat us like a division but we aren’t a 

division. We have a lot of people, all spread out, doing all kinds of things but we 

certainly don’t have a division staff or the capabilities of a division staff. Instead 

of having to deal with all these separate brigades, the Corps has just conveniently 

let us manage that animal. I think that’s OK and it’s worked out OK. I don’t know 

what one would do, though, if one did not have the Corps Artillery staff available 

to do this. We have basically lost the ability in this Corps to deploy the Corps 

artillery headquarters. 

Q. I would have imagined that, had the 3d COSCOM not deployed to become 21st 

TAACOM (Forward), the COSCOM might have been given this mission? 

A. Yes, it sort of smells like a COSCOM mission in a lot of ways but given the fact 

that you are going to deploy them and are going to rely on the reservists to pick 

up that mission, a hard enough mission, just doing the standard mission that they 

have routinely trained for. It would not have been a good idea to have given them 

a nonstandard mission. I think that the Corps Artillery has proven itself to be a 

very flexible headquarters, from the World War II Commemorations in Normandy 

onward. From Deep Ops, our normal mission, to the World War II stuff, to run 

the fire coordination exercises, to train this force up; the staff has shown itself to 

be extremely capable and flexible. It has been almost a contingency staff at the 

disposition of the Corps commander, a special staff. The force modernization 

board mission went to VCA. This is kind of how this staff has been used. 

Q. One hears speculation that VCA won’t survive the end of this deployment...

A. There are going to be some changes in the organization. I don’t know what they 

will be although I have made some recommendations and offered my thoughts. 

We all have. Personally, and I’ve expressed this to Colonel Maples and Colonel 

Wynarsky and to the VCA commander, I think there are a lot of other options out 

there with regard to what ought to happen in the end state, many of which are 

linked to the final force structure here in Germany. I don’t know what the Corps is 

going to look like in a few years. 
110

Q. That’s a good issue because the Corps is starting to look more like a contingency 

organization than a conventionally organized Corps configured for high intensity, 

heavy operations. It’s almost as if we are becoming a nonstandard Corps for 

nonstandard missions, we already aren’t like III Corps. 

A. That’s correct, and we probably should not be. If your mission has changed and 

your structure has not, then you might conclude that there has been a disconnect. 

The mission has changed. We are a contingency Corps. The structure ought to 

change. I think the structure of Corps artillery ought to change. The only option 

in my mind that has not much to argue for it is the current organization, too many 

headquarters and not enough troops and it’s always our turn, as a result, there’s no 

cycle. We’re red, amber, green, all at the same time. I call that the “RAG” cycle. 

There are a lot of options that I think we could consider in reorganization. Right 

now though, the staff is indispensable in its current role, given the current missions 

the Corps has been called on to handle. 

In the end, when the dust settles from this operation and VCA goes back to being 

VCA and the wide range of missions given to 41st FA Brigade settles down to just 

being a general support Corps artillery brigade, one has to question the wisdom of 

maintaining two headquarters to control one battalion and one separate battery. I 

think something will happen. 

Q. (Doesn’t) the same question arises about USAREUR; a four-star headquarters 

that controls only one Corps, which itself has only two divisions minus and separate 

brigades? 

A. Yes. A lot of minuses and that’s adding up to a lot of minus in terms of how 

hard it is to get things done. If you are going to be a contingency organization, or 

command, then you have to have some flexibility and be quick on your feet. This 

theater is not as quick on its feet as it could be, simply by design, in my opinion. 

Q. It seems obvious that, for a contingency missions set, the theater needs light 

infantry. 

A. I agree. My personal view? I’ll draft out what I think the future of USAREUR 

ought to look like. I think you need one heavy division with three maneuver 

brigades. I’d nominate Vilseck, Schweinfurt, and Baumholder. They all are wellestablished, big bases with good facilities, and excellent local training facilities. 

I’d roll those into one division flag. Then, I’d propose deactivating one division 

and one maneuver brigade. Using those savings, I’d resource an air assault 

brigade, maybe based on SETAF in Italy, leave the parachute battalion there, then 

maybe two airmobile battalions stationed in the Central Region or maybe move 

the whole shebang to Italy. Clearly, the theater needs more light assets and that 

brigade can be fleshed out with assets currently in the Corps separate brigades; 

11th Attack and 12th Aviation. It essentially would be an air assault brigade with 
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attack helicopters, lift assets to lift one battalion at a time. That would give you the 

quick strike force you need. 

From the artillery perspective, what goes with that? The Chief of Staff of the 

Army has endorsed the concept of giving a MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket 

System) battalion to divisions, that’s going to happen. So the division that 

remains here would have two MLRS batteries with 18 launchers, total and the 

TAB battery, all organized as a battalion under a lieutenant colonel. Here, just to 

get ahead of the power curve, we could assign 1-27 FA to one of the divisions. 

The alternative is, if you set up this structure, do you want an artillery brigade 

in the Army and in Europe? The answer may very well be yes. If you do, then I 

think you have to give it two battalions. I would suggest you reorganize the 155 

battalion out of that deactivated brigade I just talked about and make it maybe an 

M-198 battalion.16 So you have a towed 155 capability under the Corps artillery 

and you have a MLRS ability with ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System). 

That supports the heavy division and provides some 155 airmobile firepower to 

the air assault brigade without weighing it down with an M-198 battalion. The 

105 mm battalion would be organic to the brigade, a la (the) 101st Airborne (Air 

Assault) and I imagine that Corps and USAREUR will eventually become a 

combined staff, whatever we choose to call it. The problem is that the Corps staff 

has to remain deployable and has to be able to be disentangled from the theater 

staff when it’s needed. 

Q. Otherwise you have the same situation that FORSCOM (Forces Command) 

and Third Army had at the time of the DESERT SHIELD deployment, when they 

couldn’t separate the two organizations? 

A. Yes, because the staff has to be deployable, the Corps is a deployable asset. I’m 

just not sure we can afford the duplication with theater. 

Q. I have heard people in the USEUCOM (US European Command) J3 suggest 

that all the service headquarters in Europe can go away and their functions be filled 

by the service operations deputies on EUCOM staffs. 

A. Clearly something must happen. You have 1-27 versus 41st Brigade in a 1:1 

structure; you have V Corps Artillery and 41st Brigade in a 1:1 stovepipe; and then 

you have the Corps and USAREUR problem and there’s the USAREUR and the 

USEUCOM problem. I think there must be some collapsing of roles at some point. 

All that’s above my pay grade but it seems probable. 

Headquarters structures always seem large when compared to the combat 

elements under them. On the other hand, we do a lot of things here in Europe that is 

not directly related to sending bullets down range. They are related to planning and 

relationships with our allies and exercises with them. Those all require resources 

and expertise. A lot of times, you have to send a lieutenant colonel or a colonel, 
112

just for protocol reasons and actually, there aren’t enough to go around - I can tell 

you. The separate staffs do eat up a lot of overhead, though. 

Q. To close the circle, can you argue that JOINT ENDEAVOR demonstrates the 

need to retain these capabilities?

A. Well, yes, it does. We still have the ability; it would be a little tight. I also think 

that this organization has pretty well done the Bosnia thing. The thing that most 

people don’t understand, maybe a lot of planning was done that I don’t know about 

but this thing kind of went off on a fairly short timetable. 

There were noises back in 1992 and 1993 about sending 1st Armored Division 

to Bosnia. There was an emergency train-up and that was the first time that CMTC 

developed its Operations-Other-Than-War training package and all that. Really, 

the flash to bang time, that “yep, we’re really going to go to Bosnia and here’s the 

agreement and here’s what you’re going to have to do down there,” was really 

pretty short. In some cases, it was non-existent. 

In September, we were still training and rehearsing for extracting UN forces 

from Bosnia. By 10 October, we were training for this other stuff. When you 

walked into the division main CP (Command Post) in 1st Armored Division during 

the fire control exercise, we were still wrestling with what high-payoff targets 

were in the Bosnia environment while trying to run a very complicated exercise 

at the same time. Just scheduling the gunnery and all the different ranges and 

getting everybody through all the standard tables in such a massive way was an 

organizational nightmare for the staff. They were still trying to plan what they 

were going to do down in Bosnia. They had the real stuff on one map and the 

exercise stuff on another map. It was a very busy time. 

Q. One of the points we haven’t touched on yet is that our planning necessarily 

had to move in advance of NATO planning because of the delays inherent in NATO 

politics and those delays sometimes meant duplication of planning effort when 

NATO made decisions that took us in directions we hadn’t necessarily anticipated. 

Yet planning had to be done to get units ramped up to go? 

A. Yes. NATO is kind of like the politicians. The military often doesn’t get 

the lead time that it wants to do what the politicians want us to do. They don’t 

make their decisions far enough in advance of events because they are politically 

sensitive but you’re right; where are we going to be, where will our ZOS (Zone 

of Separation) be, what is a ZOS? You are going to enforce a peace treaty. Well, 

what does the treaty say? We don’t know yet. What do I train for? What are 

the rules of engagement? When do we go? All of those questions, in the end, all 

worked out. The deployment was not as well done as it could have been in terms 

of scheduling the trains and when units were going to go and what the flow was. 
113

Q. Have we lost a little bit of expertise in understanding how the Bundesbahn 

(German Rail) works? 

A. The transporters will tell you that the people and organizations that did that 

during DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM were taken out of the force 

structure here in Europe two years ago. I remember moving 4-27 FA back 

to Fort Sill (OK) in the summer of 1994. I needed an airplane. I tried to get 

the transportation folks to do it and found they didn’t know how to do it. The 

organization that had done that for the 3d Brigade, 1st Armored Division, moved 

out of Mannheim and had been deactivated and the knowledge and expertise went 

with them. We wound up sending a message from the battalion to Scott Air Force 

Base (IL)17 because nobody else knew how to get an airplane for us. There has 

been some expertise lost in that area. I am not sure, in my own mind, that the 

BSB (Base Support Battalion) and ASG (Area Support Group) structure has been 

validated in this operation. I think they were not particularly useful as launch 

platforms, which is one of their missions. The base support battalion is supposed 

to keep everything running so that the tactical unit can deploy. So what are we 

doing here in Task Force Victory? Why does the force structure have to pay the 

overhead to run so much of the rear detachment operations? 

Of course, a BSB really doesn’t have many people in uniform. I think that it 

might be useful to have a manager there on an area basis to coordinate community 

activities but I am not real impressed with their wartime role as a deployment 

platform to run railheads and so on. They can’t do very much before they simply 

have to call on the troops to do it. Units can run railheads and most did. The 

ASG will claim that they did it but what really happened was that people from 

the BMCT (Battalion Movement Control Team) came down and were there at the 

railhead and the units put themselves on trains, pretty much. Or it was a pusher 

unit that handled it. You know 2-67 Armor ran a railhead. 

There is a lot of stuff in the BSB-ASG structure that needs to be there but I 

am not sure that the BSB-ASG concept, versus the old garrison and community 

structure, has really been proven in this deployment. I thought the structure had 

been created as an answer to the DESERT STORM problem of “how do you run 

Hanau (in Germany) when everybody is deployed to the desert?” 

What is pretty clear to me is that, during this operation, one could not say “the 

BSBs will handle it.” They are doing part of it but for instance, they are not 

providing transportation to and from Rhein-Main for the replacements. The units 

are doing that. They are sometimes using NTVs (Non-Tactical Vehicles) that they 

get from the DOL (Directorate of Logistics), the BSB motor pools. 

I’m not impressed that the BSBs are an efficient conduit to solve some community 

problems that are first raised up through the tactical chain of command, family 
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support group to rear detachment. In some of the way we are structured, where 

there are only Area Support Teams, there is no one to go to other than the rear 

detachment. It depends on where you are located. The bigger communities are 

working pretty well and the BSBs that are located there have more capabilities and 

they’re doing more but some of these BSBs are pretty well spread out and there’s 

not a lot they can do. 

Q. There is the fact that they are not answerable to the tactical chain of command. 

Does that matter? 

A. I’d agree. That’s the thing that’s missing. When the forward commander calls 

back to the rear detachment and tells him what his priority for moving people is 

such as mechanics before cooks or Bradley crewmen before some other MOS or 

that a specific soldier’s household goods need to be squared away now before other 

soldiers that might be in the queue ahead of him because the unit needs that soldier 

immediately, it’s that kind of linkage that is failing. There are other disconnects 

in what’s going on. 

In Babenhausen, they’re trying to close the food services, the Bavarian Club. 

They want to shorten the hours of the camp site. They want to close the bowling 

alley. The reason is that they are losing money and they are citing first quarter 

fiscal year 96 financial results to show this. The BSB is a business and they have 

been directed to be a business. The problem is, if you go back to October and 

November, we were in the field. In December, we were deploying soldiers out 

of Babenhausen, A/25 TAB and 77th Maintenance. The rest of us were working 

seven days a week. We didn’t have time to go bowling and it’s not surprising 

that the place lost money but the CINC decided we weren’t going to cut services. 

Services are all self-financing and when the troops are gone, you are going to 

hemorrhage money off of your fixed costs. The BSBs are therefore saying they 

are going to cut services but the soldiers and families staying in Babenhausen and 

particularly the families we have been convincing to stay in Germany because it’s 

cheaper for the government, find themselves with a decreasing real quality of life. 

What are you going to do? 

The only answer is that the overhead, the extra costs for maintaining these services 

for a now-inefficient troop population in places like Baumholder, Friedberg, and 

Bamberg have to be paid as costs of the operation. You have to commit some 

operational dollars to support that. The bean-counters don’t understand. That’s not 

on their radar screen and they don’t understand that. 

AAFES (Army Air Force Exchange Service) is going to lose money and they’re 

going to try to close the branch PX operations that don’t show profits. The CINC 

doesn’t even control those. He has influence with the AAFES commander, of 

course, but he doesn’t control them. 
115

I think there are some real stresses out there when you talk about the ASGBSB structure and this deployment. They really didn’t have much in the way 

of capabilities. The units did the deployment themselves. In terms of caring for 

families, transportation, replacement operations, the units have carried the load. 

R&R will be handled by the units. Community services are OK in the DEH realm 

but whenever it comes to a question of profit or loss, the demand is always to close 

facilities that don’t do well. This just is not a real pretty picture but we have sort 

of done it to ourselves. 

Q. In retrospect, these community problems would appear to have been selfevident but the command had other concerns back in December than stopping to 

think whether community activities would remain financially afloat once the bulk 

of the soldiers deployed. 

A. Yes. In the States, the issue is a little different. It is more dramatic here. When 

you emptied out Fort Sill, which we pretty much did, and Fort Stewart and you saw 

reports in the news about how little local businesses were going bust, the economy 

still offered more alternatives to the families of the soldiers who lived there. Here 

in Germany, the services you get on a military post are the English-language and 

familiar products and the better price. It’s not as if you can go out the gate and go 

to K-Mart here. 

Q. Are there other points we should discuss? 

A. I think that the operational tempo in Europe has been increased by this 

deployment but not as much as you might think. In other words, we were spinning 

pretty fast before we started Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR and I think that there 

is a frustration among the families. If there are any stress fractures that come out 

of this, it is going to be that we pushed too hard for too long before we ever got 

the call to go, in my opinion. That is the complaint that I continue to hear from 

families; “I don’t mind my husband being in Bosnia, I understand. I just don’t 

understand why he was gone for the eight months prior to the deployment and I 

don’t understand the unpredictability of this theater.” 

Families will only let you get away with being gone for your son’s ‘third’ 

birthday so many years in a row before they begin to rebel. All this is, by the way, 

despite the USAREUR training guidance that says we are going to make things 

predictable, this theater is becoming ever more unpredictable, incredibly so at the 

moment. 

Q. The 3-5 Cavalry that just got back from Macedonia and then took off again to 

Bosnia, (is an example of operational tempo)? 

A. Or the A-25 TAB, one of the finest company-sized units in theater, that was 

involved in the MOUNTAIN SHIELD and MOUNTAIN EAGLE exercises and 
116

then went off as a quick reaction unit to Bosnia. That unit was one of those that 

was pushed the hardest. 

Q. I heard one officer comment, with respect to all this, that he “didn’t sign up to 

be a Marine.” By that, I think he meant that there is somewhere, a dividing line 

between what is reasonable and what is not reasonable in time of peace. Does that 

seem to be an issue we need to address?

A. I think, in Europe, we have asked soldiers and families to make a lot of 

sacrifices, particularly of leaders. If they are not on an exercise, they are serving 

as OC for some other guy’s exercise. They are always on the road. If you have to 

go give a briefing at Corps headquarters, it’s not like you’re driving across post. 

The distance factor makes anything hard to do here in Europe. 

I wonder if they are going to look back and say that we went into this thing very 

well trained but also very tired. We used to do that anyway. We used to train hard 

and play hard. Now all we do is work hard. 

It isn’t just because of this operation. It was that way a long time before. I 

have been in this theater four years now. It’s been a hard four years with a lot 

of weekends. Family time on Thursdays is a joke. Not so much for the soldiers 

and maybe that’s the way it ought to be. Leaders have really worked hard to get 

soldiers their time off but I think that there are cracks at the leader level and you 

see it in personal relationships. The problem is that it isn’t so bad if you are gone 

with your organization because you are building your team.

The thing that really hurts is when the leaders are taken away from their 

organizations to do other things and they are away from their battalions and 

brigades for long periods of time or often. 

There just isn’t much substitute for that guiding light of leadership. I think that 

those kinds of deployments hurt a lot of people. They obviously hurt the families 

that are involved. You might say that this kind of goes with the territory and the 

pay grade and I understand that but I am not sure that it is a good idea to take 

battalion commanders, for example, away from their battalions.

Lieutenants need to be led every day. I think that there is an awful lot of 

tendency to ask for battalion commanders when these various taskings come up. 

It’s shorthand for saying; “I want a capable and skilled officer.” The talent is being 

spread pretty thin and it is being taken away from the organizations that need it. I 

think you can have former battalion commanders to do this job. You don’t have to 

use active battalion commanders. 

I am a little disturbed by the amount of time that Colonel Maples has been taken 

away from his brigade. When Andy Wynarsky was commanding 4-27 FA, I was 
117

his XO. He spent an awful lot of time away from the battalion during his two years 

of battalion command. He was away from home a lot and a lot of that was not with 

the battalion. 

That’s the difference. All these individual and small group taskings kind of left 

300 or 400 guys back in the rear without that key leadership. You can’t keep a unit 

cohesive and trained without a commander. It’s hard. We managed to get through 

it but it could have been a better situation. Being an OC is good stuff but so is 

staying with your team. 

The two things that I see that will result in stress fractures in the theater in the 

long run are the continued OPTEMPO, beyond the JOINT ENDEAVOR and the 

OPTEMPO of the leaders away from their units. On the one hand you are breaking 

family relationships and on the other hand you are breaking unit relationships. 

Notes

1. Colonel Andrew E. Wynarsky, Chief of Staff, V Corps Artillery. He served as Chief 

of Staff, Task Force Victory. 

2. Major General Walter H. Yates, Deputy Commanding General, V Corps. He served as 

Commanding General, Task Force Victory. 

3. Major General William L. Nash, then Commanding General, 1st Armored Division. 

In 1995-1996, during Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, he served as Commanding General, 

Task Force Eagle, which was based on two maneuver brigades from the 1st Armored 

Division.

4. Colonel Michael D. Maples, then commanding 41st Field Artillery Brigade.

5. Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Pieper, Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, V Corps Artillery. 

He served as Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, Task Force Victory. He assumed command of 

2d Battalion, 3d Field Artillery, stationed at Kirchgoens but then deployed in Bosnia, in the 

summer of 1996. The battalion was part of 1st Armored Division Artillery. 

6. This was the CINCUSAREUR-mandated four-day course for all personnel deploying 

to Hungary or locations within the former state of Yugoslavia, and included mine awareness 

training, checkpoint operations, and patrolling. This course was generally referred to as 

“STX,” which stands for Situational Training Exercise. 

7. Major Scott Coltrane, Assistant Chief of Staff, G4, V Corps Artillery. He served as 

Assistant Chief of Staff, G4, Task Force Victory.

8. Operation PROVIDE COMFORT was conducted from April 1991 to December 

1996. It mission, in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, was to defend and provide 

humanitarian assistance to the Kurds of northern Iraq.

9. 6th Battalion, 52d Air Defense Artillery.
118

10. The unit was from the 35th Infantry Division, Kansas Army National Guard.

11. Colonel (later General) George Casey, V Corps Chief of Staff, subsequently promoted 

to brigadier general and assigned as Assistant Division Commander, 1st Armored Division, 

with duty in Bosnia with Task Force Eagle. 

12. Sergeant Johnny Stewart, a mechanic (MOS 63B), assigned to HHC, 130th Engineer 

Brigade, served in the brigade’s rear detachment.

13. Colonel Dennis Collier, ACofS, G3, 3d COSCOM (CONUS Augmentation).

14. A/25th Target Acquisition Battery.

15. Lieutenant Colonel David F. Ifflander, Deputy FSCOORD in the V Corps FSE.

16. The M-198 is the towed 155 mm howitzer, while the self-propelled 155 mm is 

designated M-109. 

17. Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, is headquarters of US Transportation Command.
119

Interview with Major John Lucynski, Operations Officer, Assistant 

Chief of Staff, G3, Task Force Victory, Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Major Richard Thurston, 90th Military History Detachment, 

11 June 1996, at Wiesbaden Air Base, Germany

Q. Talk about your initial involvement with Task Force Victory and how you were 

assigned this mission? 

A. Lieutenant Colonel Pieper was the Task Force G3 but departed to go to Bosnia 

last week to take over battalion command down there. 

When he left, he left this document with us to assist in documenting what he saw 

as the Task Force Victory involvement in this operation. This is a good document 

that Lieutenant Colonel Pieper prepared.1

 The bottom line, to answer your 

question, is that the Corps and USAREUR (US Army Europe) Campaign Plan 

published in November 1995 directed the establishment of Task Force Victory. 

Task Force Victory was supposed to be manned by V Corps Artillery, augmented 

by 3d Corps Support Command. So, the majority, say 95%, of Task Force Victory, 

is V Corps Artillery. V Corps Artillery did not actually deploy for this operation, 

although selected individuals did. The majority of the staff did not deploy. We 

stood up the headquarters for General Yates2 for the command and control of the 

rear detachments. 

Q. How did you get the job that you have now? 

A. I was the V Corps Artillery G3 Operations (officer). So, what happened is 

that the V Corps Artillery G1 (personnel) became the Task Force Victory G1. 

The V Corps Artillery G2 (intelligence) became the Task Force Victory G2. That 

trend continued on so I was the V Corps Artillery G3 Operations and then became 

the Task Force Victory G3 Operations (officer). That is why I said the V Corps 

Artillery became Task Force Victory. 

Q. Would you provide me a more detailed version of the role of Task Force Victory 

from your perspective? 

A. The traditional functions of current operations in Task Force Victory are a little 

different from what the Corps has. We do not have a large staff like the Corps has. 

We don’t have a plans section or an operations section. So as far as operations 

are concerned, we take care of the traditional daily operations; taskings, requests 

for support, publishing fragos (fragmentary orders), publishing operational orders 

but we also plan, coordinate, and ensure the proper execution of exercises and 

operations that are still taking place in Central Region. We do “mil-to-mil” events, 

which are military-to-military events with other nations.3

 For example, this week, 

we have a delegation from Slovakia and Hungary visiting Task Force Victory 
120

units. These are mil-to-mil exchange programs, to include Partnership for Peace 

exercises, which are large-scale training exercises, generally with non-NATO 

(North Atlantic Treaty Organization) countries. For example; Albania, Romania, 

and the Ukraine are in three exercises we will execute this summer. 

Q. How long is your organization intended to stay together? 

A. As the forces were deploying, we stood up in December (1995). I was at a 

meeting a couple of weeks ago. They anticipate Task Force Victory staying up 

through December 1996. The troops are scheduled to stay out 365 days, so we will 

stay up until the troops get back. 

Q. Would you walk me through the planning considerations from the November 

(1995) time frame?

A. We have a lot of documents. What I would like to do is to give you a copy of 

several of the decision briefings, rather than to talk through it, because there was a 

lot of discussion. I think what is important with Task Force Victory is that, during 

Operation DESERT SHIELD/STORM, nothing like this was ever conducted. They 

never stood up a command and control element for all of the non-deployed units 

and all the rear detachments of deployed units within the Corps or within Europe.

 I think that is an important concept and key to this operation because I think it 

was a success story that even though an entire division deployed and quite a bit 

of the separate brigades within the Corps deployed, that we were still were able 

to train back here, conduct exercises, and conduct these mil-to-mil events which I 

talked about. 

Do all of that in conjunction with preparing replacements to go down range 

and take over the mission down there, individual replacements, and take care of 

families of the soldiers back here. This is a big job. There are a lot of families 

of soldiers back here that need instruction. We provide some of that and for the 

soldiers who didn’t deploy, we also provide instruction. 

Q. Would you describe some of the issues that you were involved with concerning 

family support here? 

A. You really have to talk to the BSBs (Base Support Battalion) that is really a 

community support activity. I mentioned that before in that what we are concerned 

about is that the chaplain is working very hard on the Family Integration Plan. We 

are concerned about the soldiers coming back from Bosnia, that the soldiers down 

range are properly prepared mentally for their reintegration back into the family 

and also that the family knows what to expect, based upon historical precedents, 

on what the soldier will do. 
121

We are not real involved with family support but on the other hand, we oversee 

it. What I was saying about the families of soldiers back here, I did not mean 

that we actually ran the family support, we monitor very close concerns that the 

commands bring up, which the BSBs and ASGs (Area Support Group) may have 

had problems with.

For example, in Baumholder (in Germany), there is a bunch of people within 

four months of Permanent Change of Station and the family housing is saying 

they have to get out of quarters because they are going to renovate those quarters. 

It does not make any sense for a family to move out of quarters with only four 

months remaining in the command. The families brought that up through command 

channels and we brought that up to the BSB and ASG. So, we don’t do a lot of 

the family support group stuff. That is the family support group’s business but 

when there is a problem within the BSB or ASG, they bring it up to us and we try 

to solve it. 

Q. Are there any common areas of concern regarding the rear detachments from 

the BSBs and ASGs that you looked at? 

A. I prefer not to talk about family support groups. I personally am not involved. 

Q. What about rear detachments? 

A. Rear detachments, we have all sorts of documents regarding rear detachments. 

I can provide you a copy of The Rear Detachment Commander’s Handbook. We 

just published this, as you can see, with a revision date of 5 June 1996. It talks 

about training, soldier’s time, sergeant’s time, for the units that did not deploy. 

For example, in the 1st Armored Division, you have the 25th Chemical 

Company. Most of that unit stayed back. They still continue to train to perform 

the Central Region mission. 

The 11th Aviation Regiment, 12th Aviation Brigade has quite a bit of the 12th 

Aviation deployed. What isn’t deployed still has other missions back here, like the 

Beirut Air Bridge and Operation PROVIDE COMFORT in Turkey and Northern 

Iraq. 

So, there are a lot of other training missions for which we provide oversight 

but again, this Rear Detachment Commander’s Handbook is a real good document 

and in it talks about the Detachment Commander’s Mission Essential Task List, 

critical battle tasks, and training priorities. Rather than talk through this, I think 

you should review the document. I think this is a real good document that we did 

not have the last time I spoke to you. It also goes through the responsibilities of the 

Task Force Victory G2, the brigade/battalion S2s, and other staff sections. 
122

Q. Why can’t the G3 section of the Corps handle what you are doing? 

A. Initially, the plan was for the Corps to be more involved in operations of 

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. That was critical during the initial phases when 

the deployment actually occurred. They had their hands full with the deployment. 

We did not concentrate so much on the deployment. We concentrated on the rear 

detachments. It is very easy to overlook the units back here when the emphasis on the 

mission, as far as public affairs (office) is concerned, is the deployment. However, 

the commander’s concern is about his soldiers’ welfare. They were probably more 

focused, and probably rightfully so, on Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. That is 

why I think they wanted to stand up a command and control headquarters.

Traditionally, with field training exercises, the Commanding General was 

always managing the fight, while the Deputy Commanding General was concerned 

about the Corps rear (area), I mean the support and sustainment of the Corps 

operations. This fell in line with a certain amount of doctrine. 

Q. Tell me about setting up the Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and 

Integration (RSOI) of forces for the first and now the second iteration. 

A. That is something that I think we received a lot of favorable comments on. 

We are starting to go through the second iteration and we only hope that it goes as 

smoothly as the first iteration. We were advised in December that there were going 

to be a lot of RSOI units. We were told there were going to be a lot of Reserve 

units coming over to augment Task Force Eagle and the 21st TAACOM (Theater 

Army Area Command). 

Some units would be going down to Bosnia, some units would be going down 

to the Intermediate Staging Base (ISB) in Hungary, and some were actually going 

to be staying here in the Central Region (of Germany). 

These were units range in size from a military history detachment of three 

personnel up to our largest unit, made up of about 50 personnel. In the second 

iteration, we will have units made up of as much as 190 people. 

Since they were coming over as units, we assigned a unit as a sponsor, not an 

individual. For example, the 11th Aviation Brigade was going to sponsor various 

units. We knew the units coming over from various means. We determined the 

phone number of the city where they were located. We called them and asked them 

if they were aware that they were coming to Germany. All of the units were aware 

they were coming to Germany. We said; “Okay, we are going to be sponsoring 

you.” 

We gave them points of contact from whatever unit was going to sponsor 

them. It worked out extremely well. We met them at the airport. If they had 

equipment, we took it back to the community which they will be staying in. If 
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they did not have any equipment, we just took them and their personal bags. We 

did some cursory inspections to make sure they got all their organizational clothing 

and equipment. We made sure they knew some job specific stuff for some of the 

units but not all of the units. For example, the field artillery units would have a 

fire validation exercise. We made sure that they were trained and certified in their 

collective level tasks. We also coordinated all the individual training of all the 

units at CMT, the Combat Maneuver Training Center, at Hohenfels Germany. Of 

course, they did all the CINC (Commander-In-Chief) directed training prior to 

moving forward to the ISB and B/H (Bosnia) such as; the mine awareness training, 

rules of engagement, country orientation, those kinds of things. 

So we assigned them a sponsor, received them, took them to the community, 

housed them, fed them, made sure they had the necessary equipment, sent them 

to CMTC, and brought them back to the community. A colonel-level commander 

signed a letter certifying these guys were trained and validated. They were ready 

for forward movement. We coordinated for transportation. I say “coordinated” 

because we did not actually make the transportation arrangements. The V Corps 

deployment operation actually arranged for the transportation. We told them 

a particular unit was ready to be moved forward to B/H and then the V Corps 

deployment cell coordinated the air or rail transportation to actually meet these 

guys. So, that is pretty much how the RSOI process worked. 

The concept of unit sponsorship worked very well. We have heard favorable 

comments from most of the units. We are doing the same thing for the second 

iteration. We have more units this time. We have more CSS (Combat Service 

Support) units. Some of the units are bigger. The only concern we have is that the 

communities of the BSBs have enough room to be receiving the soldiers coming 

out of Bosnia and going back to the States as well as receiving units coming from 

the States and staying in the Central Region and for those units staying in the 

region before moving on to Bosnia. 

Q. Does your organization have a plan on that or is that up to each individual 

ASG? 

A. No, as a matter of fact, where they are housed within the ASGs or BSBs is an 

ASG and BSB responsibility. Again, we have assigned sponsors to all of these 

units and they work closely with the ASGs and BSBs to make sure to arrange 

transportation. The reason we do this is that every community is different. Some 

communities have billeting available and some do not. It has to be decentralized. 

That is the key as far as housing is concerned. It needs to be decentralized or else it 

just is not going to work because every community is just so different. 

Q. What is your view on BSBs being launching platforms for deploying units? 

A. The BSBs are not really launching platforms. Let’s take the RSOI step by step. 

The reception, the sponsoring unit, is making contact with the units in the States 
124

giving them peace of mind that somebody is going to pick them up at the airport 

and move them to the communities which are sponsoring them. That is our piece 

of the RSOI. 

The staging is conducted here in the Central Region, where the incoming units 

are being housed, trained, and validated for onward movement. Is that a platform? 

I don’t know. It seems that it is a temporary holding area or platform, whatever 

you would call it. 

The onward movement is when we take them to the air port of debarkation or 

rail port of debarkation. This is the mode of transportation to get them down range. 

This is the onward movement. The BSBs, are they platforms? I don’t know. 

The first time through, the BSBs worked extremely closely with the units 

and there were only two instances where soldiers were not housed properly. The 

definition of “housed properly” means billets or barracks that meet the standards 

of a PCS (Permanent Change of Station) soldier. Only in two instances did we 

have to house soldiers in a gymnasium. Normally, under deployment conditions, 

being housed in a gymnasium is not all that bad. We wanted to treat these soldiers 

the same as we treated any PCS soldier who comes into the region. That’s a room 

with a bunk and wall locker, etc. So, the BSBs did a good job in helping us attain 

that standard. 

Q. Did you have any coordination with the 7th Army Reserve Command? 

A. They kept us aware of which units were coming from the States and which 

units were coming to V Corps. We did not have anything to do with some of the 

units arriving at echelons above Corps, USAREUR and the 21st TAACOM. The 

7th ARCOM (Army Reserve Command) was up above us and had the big master 

list of every Reserve Component unit coming into the theater. Then, they broke it 

down by receiving unit. If it is a V Corps unit, V Corps picked up the responsibility. 

It was important that we kept communicating with 7th ARCOM to ensure that we 

kept informed, if we were sponsoring a unit. It happened in a couple instances that 

we did not know that we were sponsoring a unit because we did not keep closely 

in touch at every instant. We coordinated every day and at intervals of not more 

than two days, we went through line-by-line to make sure every unit had a sponsor 

and not that they just went ahead and said; “V Corps, you have to sponsor this unit 

and we just did not pick up on it.” That was key also. They told us that we were 

going to sponsor a unit but when it came right down to it, it was not going to be a 

V Corps asset. So, we did not have to sponsor it. 

Q. You spoke earlier about certifying artillery units via live fire exercises, (would 

you expand on this)?

A. Yes. Before Task Force Victory was organized, that was more of a V Corps 

Artillery type of operation. When Task Force Eagle, 1st Armored Division, was 
125

notified that they were going to do this operation, the V Corps Commanding 

General directed that the units go through a vigorous training process, i.e., the 

CMTC mine awareness training. They had to go through CMTC as the traditional 

“box” because he wanted them to go through the maneuver portion of it. He 

also wanted to have each of the brigade combat teams, as well as the division, go 

through a fire coordination exercise. V Corps Artillery put together a fire validation 

exercise to prepare them. Again, we have documents galore which talk about the 

live fire validation exercise, after action reports (and) briefings on the exercise 

itself. This was an exercise that was conducted last October and November (1995). 

The deployment took place in December, so these training exercises took place to 

validate them for the deployment. This was a V Corps Artillery mission and not a 

Task Force Victory mission. 

Q. Tell me about other normal operations which you managed during the 

deployment besides your Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR mission. 

A. Initially, it was tough because we knew we had a vision but we had to articulate 

that vision to the brigade. The Corps CG (Commanding General) said that we 

were going to stand up Task Force Victory. It was written into the operation plan 

that Task Force Victory was going to stand up to do something. This was not 

clearly defined. We continued and even to this day, we continue to redefine the 

mission. This is an organization that didn’t exist before so its missions and roles 

are continually being defined and refined. 

Q. What is Major General Yates’ role in all of this? 

A. It was excellent having him here initially because he provided us with the 

vision. Obviously, he had the CG’s ear and kept us on the right path in terms of 

our focus. We provided daily briefings to him and we knew which direction to go. 

He left in March to go down range, initially for 30 days. He is bouncing back and 

forth. Even though he isn’t here, he is still the Task Force Victory commander. We 

provide him updates several times a week via VTC (video teleconference). So, he 

is very much in touch with the Task Force. 

Q. Tell me about any other sustainment issues that we have not discussed. 

A. We are concerned about operations in the Central Region for the units which 

have not deployed. We are concerned with the ongoing events. Each month we 

(have) got several mil-to-mil events. We go to someone’s country and they come 

here. There is nothing really unique about these exercises. The exercises are the 

same things that happen all the time. It is a little bit different now since the usual 

command and control is now gone. 

 Normally, 1st Armored Division has a two-star general, a couple of one-star 

generals, and a lot of colonels and now all that they have is a lieutenant colonel 

in charge of their rear detachment. That unit conducted a mil-to-mil exercise and 
126

we had to assist them. With V Corps being more focused on the mission down 

range, we pick up more of the mission of the Central Region current operations in 

this office. Even though most of them have deployed, 1st AD (Armored Division) 

still had two battalion-level task forces remaining in Central Region; the 2-67 

Armor and 3-12 Infantry. They go through their CMTC rotations and through their 

gunnery rotations. There were other units deploying down range, even though 

most of the deployment was conducted and completed by January. The 11th and 

12th Aviation sent down additional units. There are always people going down and 

coming back. It’s not like January; the deployment is over with. There are people 

going down and coming back every day. You need to talk about replacement 

operations with Major Kubler.4

 Every day, Task Force Victory sends down an average of 25 people. Last 

time I looked, we had sent down over 4,000 individual replacements. Those are 

individual replacements that go to Bosnia. Those are the guys who come into 

Rhein-Main (Airbase, Germany) and we get people there to meet them and greet 

them, get them to the communities, get them through CMTC, have them receive 

their OCIE (Organizational Clothing and Individual Equipment), and if they are 

married, quarters and household goods. We want to get that done as quickly as 

possible. Our goal is to have those guys down in 30 days, while also taking care 

of their family. 

Q. How is your office involved in redeployment planning? 

A. I’m extremely upset about this redeployment planning. There are a lot of 

discussions and VTC sessions. The focus is more on Task Force Eagle’s 

redeployment than it is on the reservists. I’m concerned about the reservists 

because they are going to have some units coming back in a month and I don’t 

know how we are going to do it yet. It’s a concern. We can’t do the planning 

from here because the soldiers are going to be processed from B/H through the 

ISB. The plan is for the soldiers to go by bus from the ISB to Giessen (Germany), 

which is the centralized out-processing RSOI site but what is going to happen to 

the equipment? 

Q. What about the units in the Central Region? 

A. They will also process through Giessen. There is an issue involving the 

equipment. There is going to have to be a decision made at USAREUR and 

TRANSCOM (US Transportation Command) and at higher levels. Is the 

equipment going back by ship or by air? Air is the quickest but most expensive. 

Soldiers will have to out-process through their communities. The soldiers will 

have to turn in their OCIE that they drew and turn in any of the equipment 

that they drew that is not expendable. People will be going to Giessen and the 

equipment will be going to Rhein-Main or Ramstein. This is still a little bit flaky 

as we are getting closer to execution. 
127

Q. If the units are in the Central Region, can the equipment be shipped early? 

A. That’s a decision that is above my level. We are not transportation planners. 

That is a theater army responsibility and there is the 21st TAACOM and 1st TMCA 

(Transportation Movement Control Agency), which are at USAREUR theater 

level, to do that. I don’t know. We are executors and not planners. 

Q. Is there anything else about redeployment that you would like to talk about? 

A. I don’t know what you have heard about the centralized RSOI site at Giessen. 

They opened it up on 3 June 1996. It should work well for PACs (Personnel 

Administration Center) because everyone will be going through Giessen on his 

way out. They will consolidate everybody and use it as a holding area to make sure 

all the PACs are there, to make sure they all have a centralized accounting system. 

As transportation is available, based upon a request that has been submitted, we 

can move the people down to Giessen and move them out. I think it is good 

because we can get the people out of the communities and make room for the new 

people coming into the region. We got taskers to provide people there. It is going 

to be a quality, first class, operation over there. Giessen was a fairly large military 

community at one time. There is not much up there any more. 

Q. Anything else? 

A. No. The biggest thing we did here was the RSOI piece and I think that is very 

important. The other key elements are the replacement operations, mobile training 

teams, and patient tracking. The patient tracking by Major Dolan5

 is important 

and critical. As a matter of fact, there were some medical personnel from the 

Department of the Army who were interested in our patient tracking system. This 

is the first lengthy peacekeeping operation that we have undertaken. Obviously, we 

did Somalia and Haiti, but this is fairly large scale. All of the books have planning 

figures for casualties if you go into attack of a defended position, attack of an 

obstacle, defense in sector, or whatever. The staff manuals do not have anything 

of that sort for peacekeeping operations. I think there is going to be a lot of good 

historical data drawn from the work that she is doing. 

Notes

1. After Action Report, Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, Task Force Victory, 13 May 

1966. Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Pieper, Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, V Corps 

Artillery. At the time, he was also serving as ACofS, G3, Task Force Victory. 

2. Major General Walter H. Yates, Deputy Commanding General, V Corps, and 

Commanding General, Task Force Victory, located at Wiesbaden Air Base, Germany.

3. Military-to-military events involve participation in another nation’s military 

exercises, or with the military forces of another country participating in US exercises. 

Alternatively, contact teams with special skills meet with the host nation’s armed 

forces to assist in training, development of military infrastructure, or for other 
128

purposes. These events are coordinated by military liaison teams that are resident in 

the host nation’s capital city.

4. Major Robert W. Kubler, assigned to ACofS, G3, V Corps Artillery, and ACofS, 

G3, Task Force Victory.

5. Major Donna Dolan, Army Nurse Corps.
129

Interview with Major Arthondo Mardee Taylor, Deputy 

Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, and Training Officer, 

Task Force Victory, Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR 

Conducted by Major Richard Thurston, 90th Military History Detachment, 

11 June 1996, Wiesbaden Air Base, Germany

Q. Tell me about your initial involvement with Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR and 

how you acquired this position. 

A. I am a member of V Corps Artillery and our staff was tasked as the Task 

Force Victory staff under the command of Major General Yates. My primary 

responsibility was to help establish a viable task force operations and training 

section. My detailed involvement was processing RSOI (Reception, Staging, 

Onward Movement, and Integration) units for CMTC (Combat Maneuver Training 

Center, Hohenfels, Germany) training. 

Q. How were you involved in RSOI? 

A. We were responsible for the receipt of units and validating the need for them 

to attend CMTC training which was conducted in Hohenfels. This training is still 

ongoing in Hohenfels. Once we verified there was a need, the unit/individual 

was prioritized by the task force and placed in a data base. We managed the flow 

of hundreds and hundreds of soldiers, individual soldiers and many units, to be 

trained in STX (situational training exercise), mine awareness training, and basic 

common skills training prior to deployment into the theater of operation. 

Q. Were there any problems which came up involving this tracking system? 

A. There were no problems with establishing a data base. The 1st Armored 

Division had priority because it was to form Task Force Eagle. They had the 

preponderance of need training at CMTC and therefore they received priority. 

However, there were other brigades operational to Task Force Victory that had 

training requirements. Therein lay the responsibility for us to ensure those units 

were prioritized. There were special instances were there was, for example, a need 

for vehicle operators military occupational specialty (MOS 88M). There was a 

need for maintenance personnel. There was a need for a variety of skills. There 

was a need for MPs (military police) to control the maneuver rights. So, with 

those changing priorities, it sometimes caused delays for other units in getting 

their personnel trained. I can recall very vividly the 88M situation, the intelligence 

situation, and the MP situation. Every day, the potential existed for the priorities to 

change on which MOS was needed down range. 

Q. Are there any lessons learned from the first iteration that you would change for 

the second? 

A. From my perspective, the lessons leaned are: (1) establishing prioritized 

units and (2) make known our needs to the trainers at CMTC early. This is 11 
130

June (1996). On 1 June, we found out we had 20 or 30 RSOI units inbound and 

therefore we did an analysis of units that we knew were deploying to Bosnia out of 

that group of units. In our analysis, we determined the number of personnel that 

required CMTC training. Also, we did a calculation of all the TCS (temporary 

change of station) soldiers that were inbound for the months of June, July, and 

August and our normal replacement flow. We pooled all of those together and 

determined the number of training slots which were required for the months of 

June, July, and August. That is a continuing process. That number may increase 

or decrease each month based upon the flow of the number of RSOI units and 

individual TCS soldier that replace individuals that were activated. Then there 

is the general flow of replacements to our rear detachment right now. I can tell 

you those numbers normally range between 800 and 1,500 training requirements 

at CMTC. That is just the volume we manage on a monthly basis. That does not 

account for those impromptu or surprise arrivals that we see flow into theater. 

Q. What was your thinking in putting together this tracking system? 

A. For me, what worked well was having experience with the XVIII Airborne 

Corps. We would identify those units that were deploying as units, send them to 

train as a unit, and not piecemeal those elements, and then use those individual 

TCS soldiers as fillers to plug in where openings were available. 

That worked well, exceptionally well, for CMTC training. That was a great 

benefit, and I can tell you that in my section, we immediately established a data 

base so we could have a paper product of who we had already processed through 

training. This has become a very valuable document. If someone were to question 

whether or not this person received CMTC training, we would have the date and 

class they were scheduled to attend. We maintained files on all of those things. 

Q. Once a unit arrived here, how did they go about scheduling a class? 

A. All those RSOI units which arrived, and individual TCS soldiers, were sponsored 

by units that were already here in theater. For example, the 22d Signal Brigade 

normally would sponsor signal elements and the 41st Field Artillery Brigade would 

sponsor field artillery units. The sponsors, once they received the new units on 

board, would take them through their basic issue procedures, such as CIF (Central 

Issue Facility) and the basic in-processing requirements. Once they completed 

that phase, then those that were identified to go down range were identified for 

STX training. There were some units that arrived that were detailed to stay in 

Germany and had no need to go down range. We did not process them for training. 

We depended on the sponsor units to help identify those units or individuals that 

required training. So, bottom line, the units that sponsored the inbounds gave us a 

heads up on which individual and/or units needed CMTC training. 

Q. What other issues regarding CMTC training did you handle? 
131

A. I was involved with the training aspect of CMTC and the staffing of the CMTC 

to provide the training. At one time early in the first portion of this training, Fort 

Bragg was involved in certifying units through STX lanes. Once the flow began to 

decrease, Fort Bragg no longer had that role, because CMTC in Hohenfels would 

no longer be overwhelmed. Again, the issue has arisen, should we establish a 

validated STX lane at the mobilization sites at Fort Benning, and at Fort Bragg 

again. This would take some of the pressure off of the Hohenfels training site. 

That would help us to process units and TCS individuals within the deployment 

model. The deployment model was a specific window of time when individuals 

or units arrived on the ground, before they are required to deploy into the area of 

operations. That is an issue that would be of great assistance if standard procedures 

are established. 

Q. So, did you find a staff to train at Hohenfels? 

A. There was a staff at Fort Bragg, for instance, the Special Operations Forces. 

They provided the means for the training but the CMTC staff at Hohenfels did a 

courtesy visit to validate their STX lanes there to make sure the site at Fort Bragg 

met the CINC’s (Commander in Chief) guidance on the subject matter that was 

being taught. 

Q. Who advised the CINC on the type of training to provide at Hohenfels? 

A. That was something between the CINC and the Corps commander. The issue 

of the mandatory classes was high on the list of topics they were concerned about 

such as mine awareness and things like that. Then you get into the cold weather 

survival classes. Then you get into the operational update brief and cold weather 

equipment. Then you get into the basic common skills classes but there were 

some high priority classes of instruction that had to meet the POI (program of 

instruction) that 7th ATC (Army Training Center) was directed to teach. 

Q. What was the concept of units receiving the training? Was it taught as if the 

soldiers never received training from home station, mobilization station, etc.? 

A. When the units arrived in Germany, the concept was, whether you received it 

in your drills or whatever, you would go through the STX lanes training in Europe 

because that was the only validated course to get certified to go into the theater 

of operations. Once Fort Bragg was certified, then the PSYOPS (psychological 

operations) units that went through that training were allowed to go down to the 

theater without having to go through 7th ATC CMTC training. This made a big 

difference on the flow and the training part. CMTC was starting classes initially 

every two days. Then they went to having classes start up every day. Of course, 

that became overwhelming. They call it having “surge cycles” by starting a class 

every day. The normal size of a particular class that CMTC could handle is a 

volume of up to 135 to 140 students. They would take an entire unit, emphasizing 
132

unit integrity, and process them through training. I think the largest unit I’ve seen 

go through is approximately 160 soldiers. 

Q. What kind of role did reservists play in assisting your staff? 

A. They provided us details on the unit makeup or structure. We received a sheet 

saying this unit has so many PAX (passengers) due to arrive. Then we called 

the units ourselves to get the exact number. So, that helped us in the detailed 

planning. If I know I have 40 slots available in this particular class and this unit 

has 30 bodies, then I can plug that unit’s integrity in there and fill the rest with TCS 

individuals. That is the role that they played in keeping us informed about what 

they were bringing over here, what types of equipment they were bringing over, 

and what their special needs were. 

Q. What were some of the issues that your office played in rear detachments? 

Were there shortages of personnel? 

A. There were definitely shortages of people. We were involved in the family 

support issues. We have taken entire communities and tried to figure out what we 

could plug into this community to at least maintain the pulse there. I think that, 

whether it has been training or operations, Task Force Victory has had to keep a 

pulse on those rear detachments. Those are easily forgotten, unless someone has a 

pulse on them. 

Q. If I ask rear detachment commanders and Family Assistance Centers about 

Task Force Victory, what should they tell me? 

A. From my view, they should say that the leadership and the chain of command of 

Task Force Victory were concerned about the rear detachments. They came down 

and visited the rear detachments. They came down to see how we were doing 

and to see how the family support groups were operating. Task Force Victory has 

staffers willing to work for the communities and not be just a figurehead. Task 

Force Victory is involved in the process. That is what I would deduce that rear 

detachments would say about Task Force Victory. 

Q. Is there anything you would like to add which is significant to your duties? 

A. I can tell you that establishing a task force of this magnitude and the support we 

have had to provide to the incoming and outgoing units, is a monumental task. It is 

nothing that can be taken lightly, with this small headquarters. We were required to 

do things that normal field artillerymen are not adept at doing. Of course, we had 

to be very flexible about our duties and responsibilities. This is a very challenging 

experience. For many months, I was not sure that many units realized what Task 

Force Victory was and what Task Force Victory was doing and what our general 

role was. Now, I’m sure that if you would ask units; “Who is Task Force Victory?” 

they would know that Task Force Victory is the headquarters in theater that is 

really working with the rear detachments to help them be successful. 
133

Interview with Lieutenant Colonel James Clifford, Deputy Assistant 

Chief of Staff, G1, V Corps

Conducted by Major Richard Thurston, 90th Military History Detachment, 

14 February 1986, at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, Germany

Q. Sir, would you please discuss your involvement with Operation JOINT 

ENDEAVOR? 

A. As far as I can recall, the genesis was in July-August of 1995, when the 

planning process started relative to some kind of operation associated with BosniaHerzegovina. As you’ll recall, at that time, a lot of things were going on at the 

political level. Due to the prudence of military planning, that process actually 

started here in the V Corps as early as July or August, although at that time there 

were no indicators that in fact that we would get a mission or deploy. That was 

all contingent on the political outcomes. Given that the mission was nebulous at 

best, as I recall, our efforts at that time were to do research in lessons learned 

from previous operations, low intensity peacekeeping operations such as Haiti and 

Rwanda. We tried to peel the onion back relative to personnel support for those 

operations so that we could get a feel for what specifics might be involved. My 

plans branch came up with some documentation from Rwanda,1* as I recall. We 

tried to tap into the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) at Fort Leavenworth 

(KS) but I’m not sure we ever received any documentation from them. 

I don’t want to imply that the planning in the G1 (personnel officer) area was 

wholly dependent on lessons learned. At that time, I recall a series of exercises 

and CPXs (command post exercises), MOUNTAIN SHIELD and MOUNTAIN 

EAGLE, that were Corps-initiated planning exercises conducted at Grafenwohr 

(Germany), probably starting in mid to late August and continuing through the end 

of October or the first of November. Within the context of those exercises, there 

was a lot of planning effort associated with possible operations in the Balkans. 

Although I did not directly participate, there was a personnel liaison cell that 

was established at Grafenwohr in late October that involved elements of the 1st 

Armored Division, the 1st Personnel Command, which is the theater personnel 

command for US Army, Europe, the Corps adjutant general, and the Corps G1 

(personnel officer). It addressed a multitude of issues in the personnel service 

support lane, from MWR through enlisted and officer personnel management, 

casualty reporting, and personnel replacement flow. A lot of the pick and shovel 

work was done at Graf in a committee type of environment or working group.

Q. What were the MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) plans? 

A. I can tell you the general plan but for the specifics, the MWR for this operation 

is actually a theater planning responsibility handled by the USAREUR DCSPER 

* Operation SUPPORT HOPE
134

(US Army Europe Deputy Chief Of Staff, Personnel). They own all the MWR 

assets. The way the system works here in Germany is that the brigade recreational 

specialists are the MWR coordinators within the military communities, to use an 

old term, or within the base support battalions (BSB) as the system is set up now. 

During peacetime, these MWR specialists run the sports programs and all 

the MWR facilities associated with the peacetime garrison environment. For 

operations such as JOINT ENDEAVOR, those MWR specialists are dual-hatted 

as brigade recreational specialists and in fact have deployed from their garrison 

locations with the brigade combat teams into Bosnia. Getting back to my initial 

point on this, due to the nature of the MWR lash-up in garrison, a lot of the planning 

is done at theater level. 

Q. How about the rear detachments and their plan to support families and soldiers 

left behind? 

A. This was a point of considerable concern for Corps command group and of 

course for the G1. This is one particular area in which the Army had a very well 

documented series of lessons learned and I can share with you a document that we 

used, which came out of DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM. Those lessons 

learned from DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM have been integrated into 

the garrison lash-up between the communities and the tactical units. One of the 

lessons learned was the need for a community family assistance center established 

in the base support battalion for any deployment such as this. That course of 

action is called for in the lessons learned from DESERT SHIELD and DESERT 

STORM and in fact exists within the United States Army, Europe today. The 

family assistance center, which essentially consolidates all the garrison support; 

the Staff Judge Advocate, the finance, military police, all those community support 

activities have representatives in the family assistance center. 

On the unit side of the house, the backbone of support is the family support 

group. There is a family support coordinator appointed by the rear detachment 

commander which assists the family support group in developing programs and 

with resources, so the family support group can do the planning and programs that 

it needs to do. The coordinator also facilitates contact between the family support 

group and the family assistance center in the base support battalions. 

One of things recognized early on was the importance of the rear detachment 

commander and the rear detachment noncommissioned officer in charge (NCOIC). 

In fact, in November 1995, the USAREUR DCSPER conducted a two day training 

conference for rear detachment commanders and NCOs. I believe that was at the 

end of November and about 160 people from Corps spent two days in training. 

Essentially, the DCSPER made sure that all the rear detachment commanders 

understood the system, understood what a family assistance center was in the BSB, 
135

what resources were available, and how to tap in to use those resources to assist the 

family support groups and to solve problems for the families of deployed soldiers. 

That class was an outcome from the lessons learned from previous deployments. 

As time has gone on, we have seen that the investment of time in training the rear 

detachment personnel has been beneficial. 

Q. I know that MWR was an issue in the D+60 systems brief that was recently 

conducted. What are the plans in this area for the sustainment period of this 

operation?

A. I think particularly if you are talking about Bosnia-Herzegovina, down at the 

brigade combat team battalion level where the soldiers are stationed, as time goes 

on and the theater matures, you’ll see the MWR apparatus mature as well. You 

know, the MWR assets have to get in line with the repair parts and major end 

items that move into theater and the soldiers themselves, mail, and so on. MWR 

assets have to compete for transportation and movement just as other critical items 

do. Consequently, you don’t see the MWR being stood up at the beginning of an 

operation, full blown. 

We just can’t get the resources there that fast. As the transportation system 

matures, as the base camps mature down in country and they are able to receive 

MWR assets, those will be sent. The end state for MWR is defined by the 

USAREUR DCSPER, the MWR coordinators up there, but in general you are 

talking about access to videos, libraries, television, and movies. In fact this week, I 

have seen message traffic that life cycle exercise equipment and weight equipment 

is starting to flow into the base camps for the BCTs (Brigade Combat Teams). 

That’s a function of the fact that it is time to do that now. The transportation 

system is robust enough to accept the shipment of those kinds of things and we 

are not competing as much with Class V or Class IX (ammunition and repair parts 

respectively) or other classes of equipment.

Q. How does this all get funded? 

A. I’d have to refer you to the MWR specialists on that. I’m not that familiar with 

the funding aspects of the program. 

Q. Moving on, then to another subject, what is your involvement with risk 

assessment? 

A. I am involved with risk assessment from the aspect that the Corps safety 

section is a subordinate element of the Corps G1. I think it is important to note 

and to establish up front that risk assessment and risk management are functions 

of command. Certainly we have safety specialists and safety noncommissioned 

officers to assist the command in establishing its program. I believe that the fact 

that we have had relatively few accidents, although one is too many, the few that 
136

we have had is a direct reflection of the emphasis that safety and risk management 

enjoys within V Corps and also Task Force Eagle. I know that commanders at all 

echelons have taken this to heart and I believe that we have seen the results of the 

emphasis that we have placed on safety in all our ongoing operations in BosniaHerzegovina. 

Q. Are there any special guidelines that you give the commanders or things 

basically from the regulation? 

A. Well, the procedures and requirements are established in the regulations; AR 

385-40(Army regulation on accident reporting) and DA Pam(phlet) 600-20, Army 

command Policy, talk about risk management and assessment. Also in the Campaign 

Plan that was written for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, subordinate commanders 

are required to ensure that risk management techniques are incorporated into their 

mission planning for the operation. I would just point out that convoy movement 

is a mission, just as much as enforcement of the Zone of Separation in country. 

Risk management really starts in the unit before deployment, when you are making 

plans for uploading Class V ammunition, for example. When you are talking about 

rail loading equipment at the rail head, all those things beg for risk management 

and risk reduction techniques. 

I think Corps and theater and 21st TAACOM (Theater Army Area Command), 

have done a super job in identifying the hazards and ensuring that countermeasures 

are in place to reduce those hazards both here in the Central Region and obviously 

also in sector. The good safety record that we have is directly attributable to the 

commander’s emphasis, probably most importantly, to the first line supervisor, 

the team leader and squad leader. If those first line leaders are not looking out for 

the welfare of the soldiers, then there’s nothing that we can do at Corps to protect 

them. I think it’s a mind set in V Corps; risk management, risk assessment, and 

risk reduction, that has been generated at Corps, division, and brigade level. The 

execution of that at platoon, company, and battalion level is the reason that we 

have enjoyed relatively few accidents and incidents. 

Q. What kinds of issues do you become involved with for civilians participating 

in the operation? 

A. The Civilian Personnel program is administered in theater by Headquarters, 

USAREUR, through the USAREUR (Forward) command post. I have no direct 

involvement with civilian personnel aspects of this deployment. 

If I could back up to the safety issue again, there is something that I think is 

important for the record. The Corps safety office has one green-suiter, a CW5 

aviator. The rest of the personnel in that office are civilians and they are emergency 

essential civilians. They are in fact deployed down into sector, as are the safety 
137

managers out of the 1st Armored Division. I think that they have done a super 

job. It is clearly their expertise that has helped the command in the area of risk 

management. I just think that they deserve credit, that particular bunch of civilian 

employees, for the good job that they have done. 

Q. Must a civilian be designated emergency essential in order to be deployed? 

A. They don’t have to be but clearly they should be because if they are in an 

emergency essential designated (EEC) position, there is no problem with ensuring 

that they maintain their deployable posture in terms of SRP (Soldier Readiness 

Program), shots and records, and so on. That is not to say that you can’t deploy 

someone who is not in an EEC position. I think that, as a result of the deployment, 

one of the things that we need to look at in Corps and at division level is which 

civilians deploy in support of the operation and reassess whether the positions need 

to be EEC positions. That impacts on your hiring capability. If you hire someone 

for an EEC position then they need to be deployable. In one instance I know of, we 

had a civilian in an EEC position and who we wanted to deploy, that upon going 

for the medical evaluation, it was determined that he was non-deployable. I think 

it’s better for your organization if you address all those issues up front.

Q. Do these EEC positions change at all over time? 

A. Oh, absolutely. They can be changed. They have not at this point in time. An 

EEC position amounts to a remark on the authorization document but again, if you 

have an EEC so documented, when you go to hire someone, one of the criteria for 

that hiring is that the candidate will be in a deployable status and you won’t have 

a surprise later on. 

Q. Can you comment on the reorganization of the V Corps Headquarters for this 

mission? 

A. I can discuss it from the perspective of the G1 section. We are continuing the 

operation here in Heidelberg (Germany) plus supporting the USAREUR (Forward) 

command post that has been set up in Hungary. Actually, the impact on us at this 

time is relatively minimal. My automation officer is deployed with the USAREUR 

(Forward) command post in order to facilitate the setup of the automation and 

communications in Hungary. He will be back here, probably in a few weeks, and 

we will send a replacement down, not an automator but an action officer. The 

other positions that we are filling at USAREUR (Forward) are a military driver and 

two civilians out of the Corps safety office, who are augmenting the USAREUR 

(Forward) command post. There is also Task Force Victory headquarters that has 

been set up in Wiesbaden (Germany) to facilitate the command and control of 

the rear detachments but I have no personnel assigned to that headquarters. I am 

supporting them from here in Heidelberg.
138

Q. Are there other aspects of the G1 operation that we should discuss?

A. The only point I would make that I have not already discussed is that one of my 

big jobs after we have done the policy coordination, deployment criteria, and all 

those kinds of issues that were worked; our focus has been the sustainment of the 

Corps headquarters and Corps staff in Heidelberg. 

I am talking about things like the summer rotation. Here it is, in the middle of 

February and one of the things I need to do for the command group is to look out 

into the summer to see what key and critical people are getting ready to DEROS 

(Date Eligible for Return from Overseas) and who needs to be backfilled. I need 

to be sure that, as the train approaches the summertime, we don’t find that there 

is a bridge down. I am out there focused on a real world look at the garrison to 

make sure that the Corps has the officer personnel assets to sustain and continue 

this operation through the summer. That’s a fairly big chunk of what the G1 is 

involved in right now. 
139

Interview with Colonel Jeffrey N. Christianson, Adjutant General, V 

Corps, Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR - contributing to the interview: 

Chief Warrant Officer 4 Patrick McElroy, Chief of Personnel Actions 

Division, Adjutant General, V Corps

Conducted by Major Richard Thurston, 90th Military History Detachment, 

13 February 1996, at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, Germany

Q. Would you please discuss your involvement with the deployment for Operation 

JOINT ENDEAVOR? 

Christianson. This is an operation that has been planned for quite some time, long 

before my arrival in USAREUR (US Army Europe). There are several OPLANS 

(operations plans) that had JOINT ENDEAVOR as a focus in some way, shape, or 

form. The AG’s (adjutant general’s) involvement has been planning the personnel 

piece of that. Based on the task organization, the operators, primarily, decide 

what forces are required to accomplish the mission. The AG’s job at that point 

is to make sure that the units that are part of that organization are staffed to the 

appropriate level of fill so that they can go out to do what they need to do. This is 

an everyday operation. It is part of what we do here in the AG during peacetime, 

strength management operations. 

We get the V Corps share of assets sent over from the United States to this 

theater and distribute those to our subordinate units, based on fair share distribution 

of overages and shortages. We get advanced notification of more senior soldiers 

who are arriving from CONUS (Continental United States) installations or another 

overseas installation, for that matter, and we made a pinpoint assignment based 

on the needs of the subordinate units within the Corps and on the soldier’s grade 

and MOS (military occupational specialty). We made assignments on more junior 

soldiers when they hit the airport because we don’t have a whole lot of advance 

notification of what’s coming. We have strength management mechanisms that 

tell us where the next soldier is supposed to go, based on his particular skills. We 

then assign the soldiers to the appropriate V Corps unit and they leave Rhein-Main 

(Germany) Air Base on the appropriate sponsorship bus and go to the community 

where they are going to be serving and are integrated into the organization. We are 

more or less involved in the sponsorship program, we monitor some of the actions 

and of course sponsor soldiers coming into the AG but sponsorship programs are 

commanders’ programs, run by the various units. 

Q. Did any particular issues arise as part of the personnel flow to support this 

operation? 

Christianson. No, no particular issues. First of all, I don’t get involved in unit flow. 

I get involved in individual replacements, distribution of individual soldiers. We 

went through an effort to cross-level assets within the Corps prior to deployment. 
140

Because the Corps is only at about 92 percent in the aggregate of authorized fill, 

in order to get units to full strength so that they could deploy and accomplish their 

missions, we had to cross-level soldiers out of non-deploying units. It was quite 

an exercise to figure out where the available pools of soldiers were to cross-level 

into deploying units and still maintain a certain readiness posture for those nondeploying units. 

Q. How many soldiers are we talking about? 

Christianson. It ended up being about 523 enlisted soldiers that were cross-leveled 

and the G1 (personnel officer) cross-leveled a number of officers. That saved us 

requesting that number of soldiers from the States and so was a worthy effort. 

Q. How are Individual Mobilization Augmentees processed to V Corps? Are you 

involved with that? 

Christianson. I had nothing to do with Reserve Components. 

Q. (Referring to briefing slide from D+60 Systems Review) Can you explain the 

process for deployment? 

Christianson. This more nearly approximates what I was talking about earlier on 

replacement flow.

Soldiers arrive from CONUS into the 64th Replacement Detachment at RheinMain. There, coordination is made with 1st PERSCOM (Personnel Command) 

about the assignment that will be made, whether it will be to 21st TAACOM 

(Theater Army Area Command) or V Corps or some other USAREUR major 

command. From there, the soldiers go to the community, the ASG (area support 

group) or BSB (base support battalion) the soldier goes to and then to the unit 

rear detachment. This is a flow chart that describes how soldiers will ultimately 

be deployed into the theater of operations. Once they are in the unit, if they are 

identified to go to Bosnia-Herzegovina or Hungary for that matter, they have to go 

to 7th Army Training Command (ATC) for the training at Hohenfels, Vilseck, or 

Grafenwoehr (in Germany), to get the theater-specific training to qualify them to 

go down range. 

After they receive that training, they go back to the unit to do other preparation 

for deployment. They get an IFOR (Implementation Force) ID card, make sure 

they have all their immunizations, make sure that the record of emergency data is 

up to date; all the various actions to prepare them to go on the deployment. Once 

they are certified as ready by the commander, the soldiers are given a date to go 

down range. They then go back to 64th Replacement Detachment at Rhein-Main 

for movement. They are processed by the Air Terminal Movement Control Team 

(ATMCT) office and go either to a platoon of the 64th Replacement Detachment 
141

at Tuzla or a platoon of the 64th Replacement Detachment at Taszar in Hungary. 

They have similar operations. They in-process soldiers and they account for them 

on the Personnel Accounting System (PAS). From there they are moved into their 

units of assignment. All along the way, there is coordination being done in the 

personnel channels to give advance notification to 1st PERSCOM (Forward) of 

soldiers arriving. 

Q. Is this how the system was developed or did it evolve into this? 

Christianson. It has evolved over a lot of conference tables and meetings and 

with input from all the different players involved in the system. Quite honestly, we 

have not exercised this to its fullest degree yet. We are just getting ready to start 

shipping individual replacements down there in a big way because the deployment 

is just now completed. So I would say that the system has not been working in the 

past at all. We’re about to see. The initial plan was the individual unit replacement 

operations would begin at D+60. D+60 is really 20 February and we’re a little bit 

ahead of that. We’ve had some individual replacements go down range but we 

have not started full-scale replacement operations yet. We are getting ready to do 

that. 

Q. How was 20 February selected as the date for starting replacement operations? 

Christianson. It was an arbitrary date based on planning factors at the time. We 

computed that the deployment of units was going to take 60 days from the time 

that we started. D+60 thus ended up being 20 February and that is pretty much 

working out as foreseen. 

Q. How do you see redeployment working? 

Christianson. It is sort of a reverse of what I described earlier. We start with a unit 

in the deployed area and coordinate with Task Force Eagle which will certify that a 

soldier is prepared to return based on his ETS (ending term of service) or DEROS 

(date eligible for return from overseas) that he meets the right window to redeploy. 

The soldier accounts for all his property and the unit does all the things that the 

commander is responsible for to get that soldier ready to go and then gets the soldier 

to the platoon of the 64th Replacement Detachment whether that be in Hungary or 

in Tuzla (Bosnia). Each one of those APOEs (aerial port of embarkation) has an 

ATMCT that controls the soldiers and gets them manifested and ready to move. 

From there, they come back into Rhein-Main, to 64th Replacement Detachment 

(Main). From there, they can use the sponsorship bus or their unit will pick them 

up, to return to their parent unit. The unit then has responsibility to handle all final 

out-processing for the soldier. 

Q. How about casualty reporting? We had one casualty a while back. Did the 

system work as planned? 
142

Christianson. Yes. Actually, we have had many more than one casualty. There’re 

lots of reportable casualties in the Army Casualty Reporting System. It has been 

working very well. One good thing about the system is that it works the same 

way now that it does during peacetime. There aren’t any major changes. We have 

soldiers deployed and we set up a system to account for that but casualty reporting 

flows through the same channels. Casualty reporting is usually generated at the 

unit. It can be done by a witness statement by a soldier’s buddy or whomever or by 

a medical treatment facility or hospital where a soldier first shows up as a casualty. 

Casualty Liaison Teams initiate the casualty reporting process. Once it is 

identified as a bona fide casualty that warrants reporting as such and not just as 

an accident or something else where a soldier is capable of calling back home to 

his next of kin to say he’s OK, then they will initiate a hasty casualty report at 1st

PERSCOM (Forward) or one of their personnel detachments that are spread around 

the area of operations (AOR). There is a limited number of data elements and it 

quickly gets information back to 1st PERSCOM (Main) back here in Schwetzingen 

(Germany), in order to do some research and also to notify DA (Department of the 

Army) casualty. That is followed up within a reasonable period of time, 24 hours, 

by a supplemental report - a full casualty report with all the data filled in. 

There are a lot of aspects to casualty reporting and it certainly isn’t as simple 

as I have described but it has been working very well. Once the information is 

received back here at 1st PERSCOM, the actual notification part, notifying the next 

of kin, is the important part. They are doing that in a very timely and accurate way, 

making sure that the information is verified and that we don’t make any mistakes 

that could be embarrassing for the Army. So there is a verification procedure 

with the servicing personnel detachment which holds that soldier’s records, to find 

out, based on their record of emergency data, who is the next of kin, who can be 

notified, and who should be notified. 

Then we go through the appropriate channels to make sure that notification is 

done. If the soldier’s next of kin is located here in Germany, then we go through the 

Area Support Groups and Base Support Battalions to get a next of kin notification 

officer identified and prepared to visit the family and provide personal notification. 

It depends on the severity of the injury, illness, or casualty, whether the next of kin 

gets a personal visit or, in some cases, a telephone call. 

Q. What would happen in the case of a mass casualty? 

Christianson. To start with, we don’t anticipate that ever happening and we 

certainly hope that it won’t. That has not been exercised, quite honestly. We 

know that we have a pretty good number of individuals out there in the various 

ASGs prepared and trained to do notifications. They get more people trained 

all the time and make sure they have a pool of individuals prepared to do that. 
143

But it probably would require pooling assets at 1st PERSCOM (Main) and 1st

PERSCOM (Forward) and every player who has a part in the casualty reporting 

and notification process. Probably a lot of people would be involved who don’t 

normally get involved, if we had a mass casualty situation. 

In most cases casualties and the related replacement operation are totally 

independent. If there was a casualty, it is not as if we immediately reach down and 

pluck out a replacement. It just doesn’t operate that way. If we had mass casualties, 

we would probably have to do a unit replacement or get immediately involved in 

replacing a large number of people. As it stands right now, though, there is not 

really a one-for-one correspondence between casualties and replacements. 

Q. Would you discuss the awards policy within V Corps for this operation? 

McElroy. The awards policy that V Corps employs is the same one that is outlined 

in Department of the Army regulations. In this operation, peacetime awards 

approval applies. It is not a wartime operation. The types of awards that will be 

considered and approved are the same peacetime awards that we normally make 

are such as LOM, MSM, ARCOM, and AAM.1

One difference in the awards (system) is that we are authorized to award the 

Purple Heart when injuries are sustained as a result of enemy action when the 

United States is not a belligerent party. As we have seen, soldiers who have been 

injured by mines laid by the various belligerent parties in Bosnia, have been 

entitled to, and have been awarded, the Purple Heart. 

The primary area where there is some change that will present challenges is in 

award approval authorities. In some cases, the award approval authority for an 

organization is deployed and there are rear detachments commanded by officers too 

junior in grade to award ARCOM and MSM. The determination as to who executes 

the approval authority is very clearly specified in the regulation. Working out the 

logistics of getting award recommendations signed by the appropriate persons is 

somewhat challenging. We don’t believe that there should be significant problems 

in the determination of the level of award. That is a subjective determination by 

the commander. 

There are some awards that have been identified that are specific to this operation. 

The NATO Medal is a new service medal to which personnel serving under NATO 

command will be entitled. Although we don’t have clear guidance from Department 

of Defense and Department of the Army, there will be an award called the Armed 

Forces Service Award (Medal) for this and future operations of this nature. We 

are expecting to receive clear guidance for approval of that award. There were not 

a great many things about DESERT SHEILD and DESERT STORM that pertain 

to this operation. Any lesson we might have learned from those operations are 

really captured in the current awards regulations and documents, very clearly laid 
144

out with clear criteria, particularly on award of the Purple Heart. That leads us to 

believe that we will not encounter situations that will present us with problems. 

Unit awards are covered under the current Army Regulation, AR 600-8-22. 

If certain organizations meet the rather stringent requirements outlined in the 

regulation, there is an application procedure to be followed. Certainly we can make 

such applications and send them to Department of the Army for consideration. The 

primary one of those would be the Army Superior Unit Award. Again, stringent 

criteria but based on the performances of some organizations in V Corps and in 

Task Force Eagle, it is very probable that some units might qualify’ for that award. 

Normally, we have established procedures in the V Corps awards regulation with 

respect to when the recommendation has to be submitted. Recommendations for 

the Meritorious Service Medal should be received by the approval authority no 

later than 60 days prior to the desired date of presentation. Recommendations 

for the Army Commendation Medal should be received no later than 45 days 

prior to presentation. Certainly, the earlier that an award recommendation is 

submitted, particularly in view of the geographic distances between recommender 

and approver, is best to ensure that soldiers get awards before they depart the 

command. However, those “no later than” dates should be adequate in the case of 

this operation and we should be able to process awards and get them back to units 

if they meet those criteria. The Legion of Merit has a longer time line and it should 

be started no later than 90 days prior to desired date of presentation because the 

consideration process is somewhat more stringent. 

Q. Do you track statistical data on awards and other personnel actions with respect 

to this operation? 

McElroy. We certainly track the number of awards that are approved and that 

is rolled up into annual reports that we render. We keep track of the number of 

retirement applications that are submitted or requests for other routine personnel 

actions that go on through the course of events. 

SIDPERS (Standard Installation and Division Personnel Reporting System) 

actions are certainly tracked and managed by the SIDPERS data base. In my 

personal actions area though, there is no separate JOINT ENDEAVOR cell that is 

managing actions separately from all the others that involve V Corps soldiers. 

There has been no reporting requirement, at least as of this date, established 

for personnel actions that relate to this operation. If a reporting requirement is 

ever established, say for number of awards or foreign service tour extensions or 

curtailments or other actions that could fall into the category of personnel actions, 

I think that information is retrievable from systems that we already have. We can 

quantify that. 
145

Q. What is the current picture with reenlistments? Does the situation change for 

a soldier who is deployed with Task Force Eagle, for example? 

Christianson. If a soldier doesn’t want to reenlist, there is no way you can force 

him to do that. In which case he will be returned from the deployed area, come 

back here, out-process, and return to civilian life. If a soldier does desire to reenlist, 

there is a network of retention NCOs (non-commissioned) officers in Hungary 

and Bosnia and they have the appropriate links to check on the Army needs and 

see what options are available for reenlistment and providing that the soldier is 

otherwise fully qualified, they will reenlist him in the deployed theater. In fact, 

there was a picture on the cover of Stars & Stripes several days ago of a soldier 

reenlisting from the headquarters of Task Force Eagle. I’m sure it’s happening 

every day. A soldier can reenlist now within eight months of his ETS, between the 

eighth month and third month of separation is the current window for reenlistment. 

An exception to policy has been made as well about the minimum time for a soldier 

to reenlist. It is supposed to be done within 90 days of his ETS. Department of the 

Army has made some allowances for that just for this operation. 

Q. Any special comments about promotions and reductions? 

McElroy. Those systems are under the same criteria that affect the rest of the 

Army. The only change is in the promotion system, in the semi centralized system 

for promotion to sergeant and staff sergeant. There is not an authorization for one 

promotion point for each deployed month to be added to the soldier’s promotion 

point score if he attains enough points to make that total, either in the annual 

computation or an other than annual change. The same criteria for meeting cutoff scores for promotion apply and promotions to grades E2, E3, and E4 are 

still controlled by Department of the Army guidance at unit level. There is no 

change there. Promotion to senior enlisted grades; E7, E8, and E9 are centralized 

by Department of the Army and those procedures have not changed for JOINT 

ENDEAVOR. 

Q. How does a deployment like this affect a soldier’s promotability? 

 Christianson. The system is such that fairness is always the watchword, particularly 

in the centralized promotion system for senior NCOs and officer promotions above 

the grade of first lieutenant. It is impossible to really say whether this deployment 

will be a factor in selections for future promotions. I’m sure that centralized 

selection boards that are convened will be cautioned not to unduly weight the 

experience of an individual in Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR because everyone 

is not going to have a chance to do this and those who do should not have special 

consideration. 

That is what happened during DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM. Because 

they were of such short duration for those who participated in those operations, the 
146

Army was afraid that they would be unduly favored and the system would lose 

an element of fairness. The converse to that is that an experience of this nature, 

whether it is in DESERT SHIELD or DESERT STORM or Operation JOINT 

ENDEAVOR, does provide some expertise that those who were not involved did 

not gain. So, one could make an argument that maybe they are not better qualified 

but have more potential to serve in various capacities in the Army. I don’t know 

this for a fact, but I believe that boards will be cautioned during standardized 

briefings not to unduly weight this experience. Each board member will make a 

judgment on how much weight they will give the fact that a soldier participated in 

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. 

McElroy. If I might interject, in a practical sense, 1st Personnel Command, as 

part of their mission, has personnel service detachments deployed throughout the 

theater and they are capable of reviewing cut-off scores, indentifying soldiers who 

meet those scores, publishing the appropriate orders, process advancements and 

promotions for lower-grade soldiers, processing promotion actions for lieutenants, 

so that there is no opportunity for a soldier due a promotion not to have the 

appropriate mechanism functioning for him. There are some soldiers down there 

committed to making sure that no soldier misses promotion as a result of some 

mechanical failure in the system. There are folks there to exercise and execute 

that mission. 

Christianson. One other thing on promotions, Mr. McElroy talked about the one 

point per month that soldiers get who are competing for promotion to E5 and 

E6, up to, I think there are a maximum number of points but I don’t recall; I 

want to say nine months. There is another provision for conditional promotions. 

Because the enlisted promotion system is tied to various educational gates in the 

Noncommissioned Officer Education System of PLDC, BNCOC, or ANCOC2

, if 

a soldier otherwise meets a cutoff score or his sequence number comes up under 

the centralized system and he is unable to attend those courses because of the 

deployment, he is conditionally promoted with the condition that he immediately 

attends the requisite course following redeployment. That way a soldier is not 

disadvantaged based on being deployed for this operation. 

Q. How does running an AG operation now compare to what we did as little as 10 

years ago in Europe?

McElroy. In my experience the main difference is in the technology we have 

available; the utilization of computers, e-mail, fax. The ability to have telephonic 

conversations with deployed soldiers is far better than it was in those days. It is 

allowing us, I think, to be more efficient and much faster. Technology is truly the 

real difference, not the size of the force in Europe. 
147

On the other hand, I am not a strength manager but previously, in the two-Corps 

USAREUR and during the Cold War mission, our strength posture was much 

healthier than it is now. Units were manned at 100 percent or better strength in 

many organizations which made the mission of making sure they were filled to 

their needs, to go and execute a mission, a little bit easier. The pool of folks we 

could draw from was much bigger. The challenge for Colonel Christianson and 

the strength management section here was very big in identifying the units that had 

shortages and then finding the appropriate pools to draw them from, either from 

Europe or from the States. That was a major challenge. In the smaller Army, it is 

not as easy to reach out for the soldiers you need to fill vacancies, either by number 

or by critical specialty, as it was in those days. 

Q. Are there other issues relating to this operation that we should discuss? 

McElroy. I was previously involved in the plans and operations business and 

worked on different plans to go to the former Republic of Yugoslavia in various 

postures to do various sorts of things from the Vance-Owen Peace Plan through 

various evacuation scenarios. One of the key things that has happened in this 

operation is the implementation of a new method of accounting for people, 

the Personnel Accounting System (PAS), encouraging the soldiers to do the 

procedures that get soldiers entered into that system to make sure that there is a 

better accountability of who is deployed and when they were deployed and where 

they are in the deployed theater. That is very important. I think that, as the PAS 

system matures and as we learn lessons about it from this operation, it will have 

important applications throughout the Department of Defense in identifying where 

soldiers are deployed, if they are not at their home stations. 

The manner that soldiers were screened for deployment is important to insure 

that they met stringent criteria. That involved communities, the base support 

battalions, the legal and medical communities, to make sure that from lessons 

learned in DESERT STORM, soldiers had taken care of their personal affairs so 

that they knew what to do with their POVs and that they had the right shots and 

that their records were in order. That really set a fine standard to make sure that the 

soldier on the ground had no loose ends to tie up and could focus on his mission. 

Combined with the fact that there are active family support groups taking care of 

families back in Europe, this allows soldiers to have less on his mind that is not 

related to the mission. They help him to be more effective in the theater. 

Q. Does the deployment raise any issues on enlisted and officer efficiency reports 

and evaluations? 

Christianson. No issues are specific. The evaluation process, both for NCOERs 

and OERs (ratings) remains essentially the same. There has been one added 
148

provision, an optional 60-day report for deployed soldiers, recognizing that there 

is going to be a lot of movement. In order to capture an individual’s manner of 

performance, for something less than the usual required 90 days, this optional 60-

day report has been implemented but only for deployed forces. Otherwise, the 

system operates as it normally does in peacetime. This is obviously situationallydependent. 

My choice would be, if possible, to have one report that covers the entire period 

of the deployment. A lot of choppy reports tend to lose significance in the eyes of 

those people who have to make personnel management decisions based on those 

reports. Real short duration reports are sometimes disregarded as not meaning a 

whole lot. That has been my experience. 

McElroy. The fact that the deployed personnel detachments are there is critical 

in the evaluation reporting process because they receive those reports from the 

submitting units. The onus of the report processing is on a unit commander as a 

unit chain of command responsibility. The personnel detachments receive those 

reports and dispatch them to the appropriate headquarters, weather that be the 

Enlisted Records and Evaluations Center for the active duty enlisted, or wherever. 

Personnel detachments are staffed to execute that mission and part of their 

mission in going down there was to make sure those reports were processed so that 

there would be no jeopardy for soldiers receiving evaluation reports in a deployed 

theater. We wanted to make sure those reports got to the official records in a timely 

way. 

One of the aspects of the deployment process is that there is a deployment 

personnel file that was created for each of the soldiers. That is turned into the 

personnel detachment to identify the soldier’s active duty or reserve status or 

whatever. In the personnel detachment, referring to that file, they can make the 

determination to send the efficiency reports to the right place. The evaluation 

report regulation clearly lays out where the reports go. For the IMA (individual 

mobilization augmentee) soldiers, the reports go to ARPERCEN (Army Reserve 

Personnel Center).

Notes

1. Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, and 

Army Achievement Medal, listed in descending order of precedence.

2. Primary Leadership Development Course, Basic Noncommissioned Officer Course, 

and Advanced Noncommissioned Officer Course. 
149

Interview with Major Kenneth O. McCreedy, Chief, Plans and 

Exercises, Assistant Chief of Staff, G2, V Corps, Operation JOINT 

ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Major Richard Thurston, 90th Military History Detachment, 

12 April 1996, at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, Germany

Q. Major McCreedy, would you please discuss your involvement with the planning 

for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR? 

A. In terms of the operation, we began to suspect during late August or early 

September (1995) that we would have to execute a mission of this type in Bosnia. 

At that time, the way we looked at it was that the V Corps’ role was going to be that 

of a force provider. We would provide the 1st Armored Division to a multinational 

Corps to execute the mission. So our planning was kind of at that level and did not 

require a whole lot of work. As we went through our mission analysis and brief 

for the commander of the Corps, we were then informed in no uncertain terms by 

General Abrams1

 that he had a broader idea of what the mission would be. 

Q. What were the threat issues that you perceived? 

A. That was part of the difficulty in planning. The planning preceded the 

negotiations. Remember what was happening back in August and September 

(1995), the Croatians and Muslims were conducting an offensive against the Serbs 

in the Bihac area and having success for the first time after a series of setbacks 

in the summer. It was a transition phase. During the summer, the Serbs had 

experienced a lot of success in taking Zepa and Srebrenica and were threatening 

Gorazde. Beginning in August, the Croats and Muslims began their successful 

offensive, so that the pendulum of power was beginning to shift there. It looked 

as if Ambassador (Richard C.) Holbrooke’s negotiations were beginning to have 

some success. That was what generated the initial planning but what the threat 

environment was going to be was up in the air because we didn’t know what the 

conditions of our commitment would be, whether the war would still be going on 

or whether the politicians would achieve a peace agreement before we went in. 

We weren’t sure whether we would be going in as peace enforcers or peacekeepers 

or just to save UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force) or what the exact 

mission was going to be. That characterized the planning all the way through. 

We were ahead of the policy makers and ahead of higher headquarters in 

formulating the plan. We were kind of planning in a vacuum and having to make 

a lot of assumptions to build what became the campaign plan. The threat level 

went all the way from intervening directly into a war down to what actually 

happened, entering the country under the terms of a peace agreement with the task 

of separating the warring factions in a fairly benign environment. We had to plan 

for all those different levels. 
150

Q. Who is really the threat in Bosnia? 

A. There are three primary factions; the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Croats, 

and the Bosnian Serbs. Under the Dayton Peace Accord, we are supposed to be 

neutral. Prior to that, in October, however, we conducted a bombing campaign 

against the Bosnian Serbs to bring them into line with the negotiations and to 

enforce the cease fire that they had agreed to. 

It was complicated because it was clear from the beginning that we had much 

more than a military problem. We weren’t just looking at the Russian hordes 

coming across the inter-German border and counting the number of regiments and 

guns and tanks and that kind of thing. There was a political, economic, and social 

environment associated with this whole operation and that environment would 

shape the threat. The threat might not come from actual military forces but from 

paramilitary forces, from criminal elements, or from terrorists that were there. 

The Muslims were supported by mujahedeen forces from various radical Islamic 

countries; Afghanistan, Iran, and Libya, among others. So there was a mix there 

that was potentially dangerous. That area is part of the pathway for narcotics 

coming out of Turkey and the Near East and it is an economy that has functioned 

for years within a black market context. There are all those elements that are 

involved in that and that could transition into criminal activity directed against any 

forces that came into the area. The embargo that has been in effect against Serbia 

for the last five years has underscored the black market nature of the economy. 

Everything had to go underground in order to get basic services and goods. 

Q. In your planning, how did you allow for seasonal variations? 

A. Initially, we did not because we did not know what the time frame would be. 

Our initial assumption going in was that we wouldn’t do this in the winter because 

it is the worst possible time to execute an operation like this. On the plus side of 

going in during the winter is the fact that military activity is low. The minus side 

is that the weather conditions are very harsh and transportation, which would be 

difficult under the best of conditions, would be very difficult in the winter. At the 

time also, we didn’t know whether we would be able to come in from the north 

which was our preference. The area that we thought we were going to get and 

which we ended up getting was in northeastern Bosnia. Before, the planning had 

called for entering that area from the coast, from Split and Ploce.

We did not want to have to make our way across the Dinaric Alps to get there, 

especially if we had to go during the winter. We also figured that those limited 

roads would be congested with the French and British entering their areas of 

operation from those same ports and supplying themselves from those ports over 

those very few routes.
151

The roads would have been maxed out so we immediately began looking at 

entering through Croatia, with another option of coming in through Serbia. A lot 

of our planning effort in October was devoted to how we would get into the place 

to begin with. 

Q. What was the disadvantage, threat-wise, in entering through Slovenia and 

Croatia? 

A. You don’t gain much going through Slovenia. The threat wouldn’t be any 

problem. You don’t gain a whole lot. What we ended up doing, of course, is using 

Hungary which has a better transportation infrastructure and a more direct route 

south into Tuzla. 

Again, part of the problem is that Croatia is aligned with the Bosnian Croats and 

Serbia is aligned with the Bosnian Serbs. So, while we knew we would have to 

transit one of those countries, we didn’t want to put bases in either for fear that the 

situation would deteriorate and we would be left with a base in potentially hostile 

territory. 

Further complicating it is the fact that there is another faction occupying eastern 

Croatia which we know as Sector East, and it is a Serbian minority population that 

holds that area. It wasn’t clear whether the Croatians were going to go after that 

area militarily which could have brought Serbia and Croatia into direct conflict. 

At the time we were planning that, we therefore had to be concerned about Sector 

East. That was addressed in the Dayton Peace Accords, so there is now a force 

that occupies that area and it is fairly stable but up until a couple of months ago, it 

wasn’t very clear whether that was all going to work out or whether we were still 

going to have Sector East to worry about. 

Q. Early in the planning process, did you identify any particular terrorist threat in 

Germany? 

A. We did some analysis and addressed some of the potential problems that would 

be associated with it. Given the Middle Eastern Islamic extremists who were in 

the area supporting the Bosnian Muslims, there was the danger that a threat could 

spread along the lines of communication and into the Central Region. We looked at 

that. It really was not that significant a threat and we didn’t worry about spending 

a whole lot of resources to counter it but it was something that we had to be aware 

of and to monitor. 

Q. Upon signing the Dayton Peace Accord in December 1995, how did your 

planning evolve? 

A. It wasn’t affected that much because as we began to build the Campaign Plan 

in late October. The planning staff was called to Grafenwoehr (Germany) in late 

October for a meeting. 
152

We arrived on a Monday. It was actually the first of November because it was the 

day after Halloween and we met in the morning. We came back at noon to begin 

writing a Campaign Plan that was going to be due that Friday. So Corps planning 

staff was told they would write the USAREUR (US Army Europe) Campaign Plan. 

By that time the bombing campaign had gotten underway and some of the shape of 

the peace accord that would probably emerge had begun to be evident. Therefore 

we had some sense of the parameters within which we would work. US forces 

would not be committed unless there was a peace agreement. It would not be 

a situation of active fighting but we would have to be prepared to go in strong 

enough to prevent a renewal of the fighting. 

Q. What were key issues you considered in building the Campaign Plan? 

A. The key piece was the nature of the peace that we would be expected to enforce. 

As that began to take shape, it shaped the nature of the force. We knew we were 

going to have to go in during the wintertime and we knew that we would have to 

go in heavy to enforce the peace and make certain that nothing got out of hand. 

Through our analysis, we concluded that, if we went heavy enough initially and 

got things under control that ultimately our forces would be safer than if we tried 

to go in on the cheap and light and just try to wave the flag and hope everybody 

would leave us alone. We figured that a couple of Abrams tanks on the road would 

do more than light vehicles such as HMMWVs, driving around. We wanted a 

very strong presence to signal to the factions that they shouldn’t screw with us. 

That shaped the nature of the force that was envisioned. The weather conditions 

that we would face were important. How we would supply the force and from 

where, was critical, because that was going to be the major operational function 

of USAREUR, to act as the National Support Element (NSE). We had to create 

this whole command and control apparatus and figure out what a National Support 

Element would do and how we would do it. It was a logistics and C2 (command 

and control) focus there and where do you do that from? 

As we did the terrain analysis, as we looked at the lines of communication, 

our recommendation was that we work out of Hungary. Initially it was a town 

called Pecs in the southwestern corner of Hungary. For intelligence operations, we 

intended to work out of an airfield called Taszar, north of Pecs, for our Guardrail 

sensor aircraft. We were going to create what we called an intelligence forward 

operating base that would go in well before the forces deployed and give us an 

intelligence platform to work out of. So we began building that concept in October. 

As things developed in November, the logisticians looked at Pecs and decided it 

was not a good spot. They wanted to move their operation to Kaposvar and Taszar. 

So our airfield got gobbled up with the larger thing and that ended up creating 

problems for us. We weren’t able to get Guardrail in until December, much later 

than we wanted to but that was also involved in all the diplomatic wrangling that 
153

went on to get the basing rights in Hungary and allowing the recon parties to go 

in, straightening all that out. It was one thing translating the plan on paper and 

another thing altogether to have the politicians cut the deal with Hungary and with 

Croatia for transit rights, get SOFA agreements worked out, and all that but the 

concept was built in early November that we would work out of Hungary, transit 

Croatia with the possibility of transiting Serbia, and throw a bridge across the Sava 

River somewhere around Zupanje. 

Q. What provisions were made for convoys going through the area? 

A. One thing that emerged out of the planning was that a primary function of 

the National Support Element would be force protection planning. As we began 

building the annexes to the Campaign Plan, one of the annexes was the Force 

Protection Annex. The provost marshal was given responsibility for producing that. 

He came up with a draft in November. As the Chief of Staff and G3 (operations) 

reviewed the draft, however, in probably the second week of November, there was 

some dissatisfaction with it. The provost marshal planner had been sent down 

range to Hungary and Croatia on a recon. There was no other provost marshal 

planner so nobody was working on the Force Protection Annex. So the Chief of 

Staff assigned the G2 (intelligence) the responsibility for producing the annex. 

Major John Hunter, who was the G3 planner in the 101st Airborne Division (Air 

Assault) came over here as an augmentee and was working in the G2 Plans section. 

He was handed that mission and we developed the concept for force protection. 

A key element of that was the formation of what we called the Force Protection 

Working Group, which brought in elements from all the various staff sections on a 

regular basis. We looked at force protection in a holistic manner. So the medical 

planner was addressing disease issues or preventive medicine issues that might 

present a threat to the forces. The transportation guys were talking about convoy 

procedures and so on. 

The provost marshal dealt with convoy security. The G2 had the task of painting 

the threat environment in terms of armed elements, criminal elements, terrorists, 

that might exist, plus the weather as an element of threat. That was how we ended 

up integrating force protection planning and that occurred here in Heidelberg 

(Germany), prior to deployment. Within USAREUR (Forward), it continued, 

initially with daily meetings of the Force Protection Working Group, later twiceweekly meetings, and now, I believe, they are meeting once a week. They do the 

same work. We looked at the whole range of things that could affect the safety of 

the force. 

Q. So the provost marshal was completely out of force protection? 

A. No, he got back into it again but the situation remains that the G2 has the lead 

for integrating force protection. 
154

Q. As we move into March and the sustainment period, what kinds of issues is 

your office concerned with? 

A. I went down to Taszar on 22 December (1995) to work in USAREUR (Forward). 

I sat in the cell with the G3 planners and we addressed the issues as they came up. 

Initially, we were looking at the difficulties we were having getting across the Sava 

River with the bad weather, just getting the equipment there, and later on the flood 

that further delayed matters. That was a big deal just trying to monitor that. Then 

we looked at alternative routes that we might need to develop in case the bridge 

washed away or whatever. A lot of this wasn’t Intel stuff; I was just working the 

G3 guys. It was all kind of integrated. The other piece that we were doing was 

monitoring the flow of forces and assessing what kind of changes needed to be 

made in the TPFDD (Time Phased Force and Deployment Data) as units flowed 

into theater. 

Q. Can you talk a bit about communications security? 

A. Mobile Subscriber Equipment (MSE) is inherently secure. We had that to talk 

among ourselves. We had STU-3s (secure transmission telephone unit) down there 

so we could always talk secure over commercial lines. We had a SCIF (sensitive 

compartmented information facility) set up down in Taszar so we could talk at a 

level of classification higher than Secret. We had all those comms pipes, satellite 

driven communications that go back through Fort Belvoir and that allow us to talk 

to all the different Intel systems. The 1st Armored Division could do that as well 

and we were similarly connected with the Corps (Main) CP. 

Q. Could you discuss physical security? 

A. Again, that was a function of the Force Protection Working Group. They 

looked at the facilities at Kaposvar and Taszar and worked with the RAOCs (rear 

area operations center)2

 that came in. One of the problems was that the RAOCs 

didn’t show up until fairly late in the deployment. They are mainly reservists that 

are called up and there was a delay in bringing them on active duty. The RAOC’s 

primary function is planning the base security for base clusters which is what we 

were basically setting up. 

We worked with the RAOCs, got them on line, and developed the base security 

plans for Kaposvar and Taszar. Our force protection cell, our division within G2, 

was doing liaison with local and national police authorities so we were integrated 

with the Hungarians in working through security issues. We got intelligence from 

them on potential threats. That was all set up when the RAOCs showed up and 

began working through security for the facilities. MPs (military police) were 

posted along with Hungarians at the entrances of the bases. This was the initial 

security. Later on, we went to some quick reaction forces. We drilled those guys 

on reacting to any potential threat that might emerge. 
155

The guy to talk to on those liaison efforts that went on is Major John Shaber, who 

is our Counterintelligence/Force Protection division chief. 

Q. What about the redeployment? What kind of planning are you getting into on 

this effort? 

A. Let me see. When did we start that? I guess it was late January or early February 

that we in this G3 cell and I began to look at the need to build a redeployment 

plan and how we would structure that. We took some initial looks at what the 

situation would potentially be as we went through redeployment and that was the 

Intel piece, doing some assessments. Then I was also working the operational 

piece along with the G3 guys and that was figuring out what the process would be.

We got some guidance from General Abrams early on, as to how he saw this thing 

happening and we began building a plan, basically with PowerPoint briefing charts. 

General Abrams wanted everything coming back through the ISB (intermediate 

staging base) in Hungary and he wanted units coming back and going through a 

process of refitting in the ISB, a process that would obviate some of the problems 

that he experienced in coming back from DESERT STORM. In that redeployment, 

everything was kind of piled back in a haphazard way and it took a year and a half 

to sort it all out and get things working again. So he wanted to go through a process 

in the ISB of determining what was broken on equipment and of ordering parts, 

going through CONEXes (trailers) to make sure they contained no ammunition or 

war trophies or any of that kind of thing, cleaning the equipment, issuing new TA50 to soldiers, giving soldiers new uniforms if they needed them because they are 

probably going to go back to a parade, and so on. 

It will also serve as a kind of decompression period to prevent family violence 

or any of that sort of thing as units come back out. If you fly directly from a war 

zone to your home, statistically, problems increase. So his idea was to have about 

a week in which the soldiers could decompress, clean their equipment, straighten 

their stuff, and get themselves in order to redeploy as a unit. Then they would go to 

Germany, put their equipment in the motor pools, and go on block leave for three 

weeks. When they come back, the repair parts they ordered should be there and 

they go to it. Within six months, you’ll have the unit ready to fight again. 

Q. In reference to the deployment and sustainment phases since we haven’t 

gotten to redeployment yet, as far as the execution of the plan goes as compared to 

expectations, what comments do you have? 

A. In the Intel field, it was pretty close to the way we had planned it. The one thing 

that was out of kilter was that we wanted to have an intelligence forward operating 

base established prior to the deployment of forces. That didn’t happen. We were 

going in and trying to get set up at the same time that everyone else was going in 

and trying to get set up so we weren’t able to accomplish that in the way that we 

wanted to. 
156

By the first part of January, we had Guardrail sensors conducting flights out, 

we had JSTARS (Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System), ground station 

module (GSM) established at Taszar. We had the Intel connectivity so that we had 

the entire national and theater intelligence feeds plus feeds from our sites here in 

our Corps intelligence support element. We had a good working node set up. Later 

on we got Track Wolf moved from another location and set up with us in Taszar. 

So we had a significant number of collectors that were able to work the Bosnian 

AOR (area of operations) from a remote site which was what we had intended to 

do as much as we could. Also then, as 1st Armored Division became Task Force 

Eagle and flowed into the AOR, we were able to pick up the intelligence analysis 

mission and feed the division those things until they were able get set up and 

assume that mission. 

Then we transitioned to more of a Corps-type function of looking deep in time, 

out 30 to 45, looking at the indicators and assessing what the likely economic, 

political, and military situation would be that far out. Meanwhile, the Task Force 

Eagle guys dealt with the problems in the ZOS (Zone of Separation) at the time 

and we worried about the tactical problems. That all worked out pretty well. The 

other thing that we had intended to do and that worked out pretty well was to bring 

in remote sensors, signals intelligence (SIGINT) sensors that have worked well. 

As we work through redeployment, a lot of the manned SIGINT collectors we’ll be 

able to take out early and leave remote sensors in. That’s worked out pretty well. 

Q. Can you talk a little more about how the threat affected the way we set up the 

locations of our base camps if it did? 

A. It didn’t, really. The base camps were not really focused on the threat as such, 

other than looking at the security requirements of the camps, the way they were 

sited. They were positioned based on their proximity to the ZOS and where they 

stood in terms of the warring factions because, again, the initial mission was to 

separate the warring factions. We had intended to go in and build several large 

base camp, but because of the weather and the physical limitations of the terrain 

and the facilities that we thought we’d be able to use, we ended up building two to 

three times the number of base camps, much smaller than they thought initially and 

kind of spread them out through the AOR. 

A handicap we had through this whole thing was that we couldn’t put anybody 

on the ground until December (1995). All our planning was done based on maps 

and photos and talking to some UN (United Nations) guys that had been down 

there. We hadn’t been able to go down and look at things. That was part of the 

difficulty we had when the deployment began. Some of our initial assumptions 

had to change based on practical realities. Base camp construction was one of 

those. 
157

Q. How much a factor was the location of known minefields? 

A. We really didn’t know a lot about this. We knew about some of them from 

UN data bases but we really didn’t know. That was a part of were we could put 

base camps, areas that we could proof to make sure they weren’t mined. One of 

the requirements of the Dayton Peace Accords was that the factions would provide 

us locations of mines and they were either to mark them or take them out. They 

have done that to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the area. Again, it is 

wintertime, with all the difficulties associated with getting to some places so we 

expect that as the weather changes, more mines will surface in various areas and 

we are going to have to continue to work it. It is an ongoing problem because 

mines are everywhere; the factions don’t know where they all are. 

Q. What is your impression about the degree to which all the parties have been 

complying with the Dayton Peace Accords thus far? 

A. There is general compliance. There are cases of foot dragging and obfuscation 

and downright violations that occur but for the most part, they are headed in the 

direction of compliance. 

Q. I’d like to turn to the subject of VIPs (very important persons) and VIP tracking. 

A. We were the preparers of briefings for VIPs as that G3 cell that I worked in for 

a while in USAREUR (Forward). One of our primary functions was to build the 

briefs for all these guys. That took up probably 80 percent of our time in briefing 

preparations. That was the extent of my contact with VIPs.

The one VIP that I was operationally involved in setting up a visit for was when 

the President came. It was just a matter of figuring out what his itinerary was. I 

was the action officer working with Colonel Tetu.3

 Colonel Tetu was the acting G3 

at that time. We really couldn’t dictate what the President saw. White House teams 

came in and they had an agenda of what they wanted to do. A lot of it is based 

around photo opportunities and how it all plays for the press. 

The plan was for him to come in on Saturday late afternoon and depart in the 

evening after coming from Tuzla. He was supposed to arrive at Taszar and go to a 

meeting with the Hungarian president and Mr. Carl Bildt, the NATO representative 

in charge of the peace settlement in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Following that, he was 

going to go to the vehicle staging area to meet some of our soldiers and shake 

some hands and have some photos of him with all the vehicles lined up and ready 

to go down to Bosnia. Following that, he was supposed to go to a fest tent and 

make a speech to the soldiers. Then he was going to depart. Those were the three 

major activities. What ended up happening was that Tuzla was all weathered in 

so he arrived on Saturday morning early. Then they had to re-juggle the schedule 

because the Hungarian president had to be brought in quickly. Therefore, the 
158

President first went to the vehicle staging area, made the speech to the troops, then 

came back and met with the Hungarian president. He left from there as I recall 

and went to Zagreb. 

Q. Was there any planning effort that the US Army did together with the ARRC 

(Allied Rapid Reaction Corps)? 

A. Not at my level because again, our function was to be the National Support 

Element. Such joint planning is done in Bosnia with the COMIFOR (Commander, 

Implementation Force) staff, the ARRC, and TF (Task Force) Eagle. TF Eagle has 

multinational liaison officers; Russians, Finns, Norwegians, Poles, Swedes, Turks, 

Estonians, Latvians, and Danes. All those guys work within the TF Eagle AOR. 

One of the things that we did try to monitor, though, was the arrival of those forces 

into the Eagle AOR so that we could coordinate use of lines of communications.

We were also concerned that some requirements might crop up to help support 

them or help move them. As it turned out, it really didn’t affect us very much. We 

did a little bit to help forces come out of Slavonski Brod (Croatia) but basically it 

was just tracking to make sure there wouldn’t be congestion when they tried to get 

across the bridge over the Sava River and to make sure that we knew when things 

were coming. The Russians were the big group. They came in directly from the 

Serbian side though, or flew directly into Tuzla and deployed into their AOR. 

Q. What type of host nation support did Hungary provide? 

A. The Hungarians provided military police escorts and that switched off to the 

Croatians at the Croatian border. They picked up the escort, along with US MPs. 

The big host nation support in Hungary is the facility we have been given. We are 

using their air base. They removed all their planes and left. We are using their 

facilities and improving them to a certain extent. Then too, they are making a 

training area available nearby. 

There has been extensive support for the operation from Hungary. There is a 

Hungarian colonel as a permanent part of the USAREUR (Forward) staff and 

he attends all the meetings. He is integrated completely into the operation and 

speaks for their armed forces. One of the things that I did was to prepare a talk or 

briefing for General Abrams for the Hungarian president in January. He went up 

to Budapest and informed him of what we were doing and what all was happening 

in his country and what all our plans were. So there has been a real effort to keep 

them integrated and informed. 

Q. Was there any particular G2 involvement in the bridging operation? 

A. We were having trouble with the flooding of the Sava River after that sudden 

warm front came in and melted a lot of the snow producing a sudden rise in the 
159

river. It overflowed its banks, the first time in 70 years that had happened at 

that time of the year. So we were trying to monitor that because it was affecting 

operations. Some of our terrain detachment folks from the G2 went down to take 

measurements on the rise and fall of the river and keep track of that. They also did 

numerous route recons, built their data base, improved their maps, and produced 

special map products to give to the 21st TAACOM (Theater Army Area Command) 

to work the convoy routes. So they knew which bridges were weak, which ones 

had to be monitored, and what the restrictions were and they looked for alternate 

routes in case they were needed.

We did recons from Serbia, in case we needed to switch to a Serbian route. In 

addition, at Zupanje, on the north bank of the Sava in Croatia, Camp Harmon 

was set up. That was intended to be a temporary arrangement as units crossed. 

It came to be semi-permanent and we hadn’t provided for an Intel cell there. So 

we created an ad hoc cell. We pulled a couple of people out and gave them some 

communications equipment and they went down and provided an intel link for the 

headquarters that was running the bridge site at Harmon until it was disbanded. 

Q. You mentioned that you were involved somewhat with Title 10 responsibilities. 

Could you discuss that? 

A. Once the units were in and we were working the sustainment piece, we realized 

that our responsibilities in the National Support Element extended beyond Task 

Force Eagle. The question was how we were going to do that and how we were 

going to support the US forces that were working at the ARRC within the IFOR 

at Zagreb while working directly with the Brits and the French. How were all 

those guys going to get brought in for logistics support, for command and control, 

communications support, and for intelligence and force protection support? 

That planning effort, then, was to figure out what kind of structure we could 

put in place to provide that support, which was a national responsibility to those 

forces. That was a big focus in February, I guess. If you’ll remember, there were 

some sniping incidents in Sarajevo and one American was nicked in the neck by 

a sniper. That kind of got the juices flowing. Questions arose about Zagreb. All 

the Americans there were living in a single hotel, so visions of Beirut cropped 

up in the senior leaders’ heads. That didn’t seem like a smart thing to do, so we 

had people go and look at that and ultimately they were moved to a former UN 

compound, Camp Pleso, in Zagreb Croatia.4

 The problem was that we had to do 

a lot of tip-toeing around because we were in somebody else’s area of operations. 

Notes

1. Lieutenant General John N. Abrams, V Corps Commanding General.

2. Rear Area Operations Center. The RAOC is operated by the Rear Area Support 
160

Command (RASC), a US Army Reserve unit. Within V Corps, the 317th RASC, which 

has a traditional relationship with the COSCOM, is now in Taszar, Hungary. The 309th 

RASC, which has a traditional relationship with the 16th Corps Support Group, is presently 

in Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The 317th RASC, which has no specific unit training 

relationship, but which usually works with a reserve Corps support group when one is 

deployed here, and the 345th RASC, which has a traditional relationship with the 7th Corps 

Support Group, remain un-mobilized. The 280th RASC has a traditional relationship with 

the Corps headquarters. 

3. Colonel William J. Tetu, Commander, V Corps Artillery, and Deputy Commander, 

Task Force Victory. 

4. Camp Pleso had earlier served as the base for the 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital 

and subsequently, the 502d Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, which had been committed to 

support for UN forces in the former Republic of Yugoslavia. 
161

Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Albert Bryant, Jr., Chief, Plans, 

Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, V Corps, Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Dr. Janet McDonnell, Historian, Office of the Chief of 

Engineers, 25 March 1996, at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, Germany

Q. Sir, what is your position with respect to Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR? 

A. I am the G3 (operations) plans chief here at V Corps and served as the head of 

USAREUR (US Army Europe) (Forward) Plans. 

Q. I would like to begin with the early planning. Did the planning begin as early 

as 1992-1993? 

A. I personally became involved in 1993 when I was a battalion commander in 

the 1st Armored Division and had an assigned sector in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I 

went through the process of looking at the terrain and the technical and tactical 

requirements that would have conditioned formation of my task force. 

In June of 1995, I gave up command of that battalion and reported here to V 

Corps Headquarters. In August, I was part of the initial planning effort that went 

into developing a troops-to-task list to go back to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 

Washington when they began to inquire as to what we would really need to use 

and need to have on hand to execute the mission. 

In late August, it became apparent that the diplomatic initiatives following the 

joint Croatian-Bosnian offensives in Bosnia-Herzegovina in late August, were 

stepping up and that the parties in the region were willing to talk seriously about 

signing a peace agreement. We were alerted that we might have to deploy forces 

as early as early October. As a result, JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) and others asked 

USAREUR, and they, in turn worked with V Corps, as the architects of the previous 

plans, to take a look at what troops would be required. 

Q. What were some of the assumptions you were working under at this point? 

A. Specifically from an engineering perspective, one was that the infrastructure 

would be destroyed or heavily damaged and that there would be a significant 

requirement to upgrade and maintain infrastructure, two, is the issue of base camps. 

Q. Excuse me. This is in Bosnia and also in Croatia? 

A. Well, the area of operations at that time was not yet fully defined. It was 

expected to be in Bosnia but there were still areas in Croatia that were under 

examination. Nor was the specific area of operation yet defined in Bosnia. By 

way of background, there were already existing plans to do a variety of things in 

Bosnia, one of which included the withdrawal of the UNPROFOR (United Nations 

Protection Force) under duress. This was OPLAN 40104. 
162

Because of the potentially short timelines associated with the execution of the 

task, that is to say early October, we were told to use 40104 as a base line for what 

we would expect to have to do. That, even though in many respects, that plan 

had nothing to do with the actual mission we were going to execute. From that, 

and some additional guidance, 40104 for example, was a plan for a short duration 

operation to extract the UNPROFOR. Therefore, it had no discussion of longterm base camp structures. The infrastructure discussion was focused on route 

development and temporary gap crossings, as an example, to allow us to get in 

with heavy equipment and get the UNPROFOR out. It also assumed a mediumsized force, not a heavy force, of less than 14,000 US soldiers. So the parameters 

were completely different and as we sat down and worked our way through this, 

we presumed that, based on the changes, we would have to enter the country from 

the north. That meant that we would have to do a crossing of the Sava River. 

Q. Which had come first, the plan to shift the entrance from the south to the north, 

or the plan to extract the UNPROFOR? 

A. The initial plan on the books, the rescue plan, called for us to enter from a 

variety of directions but typically, from the Adriatic coast and thence into our 

sector but the sector described, the one from which the United States would extract 

forces, was Tuzla. Therefore, our planning was based on the fact that we would 

go back into the Tuzla region but based on the flow of forces and other things that 

were going on, we would not be going into sector from the Adriatic coast. Instead, 

we would be entering from the north, and that dictated the requirement to execute 

a major river crossing. 

Q. At that point, were you considering the need for a status of forces agreement 

(SOFA) with Hungary? 

A. At that juncture, we understood we had to execute status of forces agreements 

with whomever we were going to come into contact outside our normal area. We 

had not yet decided that we would be coming through Hungary. We were looking 

at where we could enter. We might have used Croatia, Zagreb. Equally, we might 

have used Serbia and entered Bosnia from the east via Belgrade and across the 

Drina River but essentially, we were focused on a northern or eastern approach, as 

opposed to a western approach. 

Q. I have heard a number of references to a meeting at Grafenwoehr (Germany)... 

A. That was a couple of months later. What transpired is that we built a 

force package, multiple force packages, built on our mission analysis and the 

requirement not only to do a substantial river crossing but also to do substantial 

infrastructure repair, to support a heavy force and then provide some degree of 

base camp development that would allow them to move through the winter, which 

was projected to be reasonably cold and harsh. 
163

That was a force protection issue, of course. We included in our troop list a 

number of engineer units with the requisite skills to do those sorts of tasks. 

Q. Once you started looking at that, did you find that there was not enough 

construction capability? 

A. What transpired then is that JCS and the President defined some force caps on the 

number of troops we could have. That posed our next dilemma because our troopsto-task estimate was well above the 25,000 troop cap for total US commitment. 

Secondarily, that 25,000 troop cap included lots of other folks who were not going 

to be directly part of the US effort; troops assigned to NATO, headquarters troops 

belonging to other services, and so on. That reduced the number of troops that 

we could insert into theater. I can’t remember what’s classified and what’s not 

classified about this but it dramatically reduced the number of soldiers we could 

employ. The order of magnitude was about half.

Q. Was the use of LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program) always a 

consideration, then? 

A. LOGCAP was immediately identified as one of the methods by means of which 

we could reduce the dependence on uniformed service members and meet our 

construction and service requirements within the force caps that we were being 

asked to accept. 

Q. So was there any question as to whether contractors came under the force cap? 

A. In my planning, they were never a major issue. That question was asked early 

on and the answer was that they would not be part of the total force constraint. The 

numbers referred to uniformed military personnel. Then, later on, there was some 

discussion within the uniformed military personnel about the allocation of those 

force caps within different regions but the base line problem remained the same, 

only a limited number of uniformed personnel could go in. The troops-to-task 

analysis said we needed a lot more troops both to do the mission with a reasonable 

amount of risk and to support those soldiers. Therefore, LOGCAP and other 

methodologies (such as) multinational force participation became the answers. 

To address your question about Grafenwoehr, let me outline the planning 

sequence. In September, we wrote an operations plan. One of the things not clear 

was how we were going to do this. In September, our mission was principally to 

provide forces that were trained and ready to serve under IFOR (Implementation 

Force) (NATO) control. So we focused on that and we were to support their 

deployment into the theater. In coordination with NATO, we began considering 

how these troops were going to be supported. It was clear that we were going to 

have to provide the support under Title 10. That included life support infrastructure 

that NATO frankly was not going to be able to provide. The issues about whether 
164

there would be sufficient NATO camps, previously UN camps, to take over, the 

condition of those camps, and the fact that we were going to double the size of the 

force in the area, all precluded NATO as it took over UN facilities from providing 

all the support. 

There were other issues about when the UN forces were going to leave. We 

were going to be introducing forces while the UNPROFOR forces were still in 

place and our ability, therefore, to fall in on their bases and infrastructure was 

also diminished. What was becoming apparent as time passed was that we were 

not going to deploy in good weather but in winter. That made the requirement to 

immediately establish improved living conditions a priority that we had to solve. 

What gets us to Grafenwoehr is that, in late October, there was a mission shift 

on the part of V Corps and USAREUR. We learned that we were going to provide 

a substantial national support element (NSE) that would deploy into the periphery 

of the region because of the force cap, principally. We could not take forces into a 

designated geographical area, which was defined and limited by the force cap and, 

secondarily, quite frankly for some multinational political reasons, we wanted to 

lessen the US profile. It was a NATO operation. It was never our intent and we 

certainly did not want it to appear, that we were taking over the NATO operation. 

So by establishing the national support element outside of Bosnia, we achieved 

those purposes of not transgressing the force cap and not offending any political 

sensitivity. 

Q. So each NATO nation supported itself? 

A. That’s right, in accordance with NATO doctrine. Because of the size of force 

we were being asked to put in and because we were a framework, or lead nation 

with a potential for lots of logistical support requirements for other nations, all 

undefined at the time, we saw a need to establish a national support element and 

position it in the region, not from the Central Region here but somewhere forward 

in closer proximity to Bosnia. Therefore, as we moved toward the winter, there 

was a requirement for this thing to have lots of infrastructure support. That was a 

major requirement early on. 

Q. I ask the following because Brown and Root (contractor) had never, in the 

past, supported a heavy force. Can you describe what it takes to support a heavy 

armored force? 

A. There are three or four things that make this somewhat unique. First of all, 

it was a heavy force, based on a heavy division of about 20,000 soldiers down 

range to be supported. Because of the very large geographical area and the 

compartmentalization of the terrain (mountainous) and we’re not talking molehills 

out in Texas, we’re talking mountains. (There is) very bad weather (with) lots of 
165

snow. The requirement, then, was for multiple base camps. The force and storage 

facilities to support the force were considerable. For example, this force consumed 

about 200,000 gallons of fuel every day. Because of the weather, you have a 

choice. You have to stockpile a certain number of days of supply on the ground in 

case you can’t resupply on any given day. Typically, we use three to five days as 

a basic stockage level. Thus, we have to store somewhere between 600,000 and a 

million gallons of fuel, replenishing 200,000 gallons of it daily. The facilities in a 

war-torn, destroyed nation, for that fuel alone, were overwhelming. 

Consider that you have to produce 72,000 meals every day. How do you store 

those foodstuffs and prepare the meals, remembering the 3-5 day stockage levels? 

I can’t remember the exact figures now but it’s roughly 200,000 gallons of water 

per day, as well. All of this in a nation that has no purification system and that 

cannot produce its own water, whose well system is already overtaxed. 

Those types of requirements, with no infrastructure, were a challenge. Compare 

that to Panama, where there was an infrastructure. Include a substantial US 

military infrastructure, that we put about 8,000 to 10,000 more troops on top of the 

ones already there. Take Somalia as another example, where there was a similar 

requirement but the size of the force was about one quarter of what we used in 

Bosnia and it was all consolidated, essentially in one place and could be supplied 

directly off the coast by boat. So there was a completely different requirement in 

Bosnia and don’t forget the winter. In some places, the wind chill was 40 degrees 

below zero Fahrenheit. In some of the places where we were asking soldiers to 

live and operate continuously. That’s not Panama, and that’s not Somalia. The 

requirement for structural base camp development in Bosnia was key. Those 

things were not so much generated by the heavy force as by the nature of the 

mission and the terrain. We had to go out and sit on terrain all over the countryside, 

simultaneously and by the way, we had to do that on the first day that we arrived 

as opposed to establishing ourselves and establishing our infrastructure and then 

bringing in the force on top of the infrastructure that we built. We had to bring 

in the force, by treaty requirement, within 30 days. In fact, we had to be there on 

day one after the treaty was signed and within 30 days, we had to have the whole 

area dominated. At the same time, we are simultaneously setting up infrastructure. 

Our base plan had initially called for a sequential occupation, which allowed us 

to put in the infrastructure. We were promised weeks of notice before we deployed 

and we actually got a couple of days. We were literally told that we would have 

up to three weeks of notice, in some cases two weeks, in some cases four weeks; 

it varied before we would begin deployment and then we would be able to deploy 

two to three weeks’ worth of logistics before we began deploying the main body 

forces. What we got was two days to deploy everybody. 
166

Q. How did you deal with that? 

A. What that created, of course, was a threefold issue. One, we had to have 

operational capability on the ground in country in the middle of winter. We could 

bring in a small package by air but we had to bring in the main force by rail. 

The nearest rail heads in the north would take us about to the Croatian border 

and that was also a war zone. We had to simultaneously build the logistical and 

infrastructure support for the operational capability we were putting in and they were 

all competing for the same space on trains and on planes. We had to do this, going 

into an area that didn’t have an existing infrastructure. We ended up modifying 

the plan. We deployed to sites simultaneously. We deployed an initial entry force 

into Tuzla. We deployed what we called LOC (Lines of Communication) opening 

forces directly on to the Sava River. That was because we didn’t know if those 

guys in Tuzla were going to be in a combat situation immediately upon arrival and 

we had to get ground reinforcements to them quickly. 

Secondly, we had to find a way to open up logistics because all the food and 

water and everything else we were getting to them, was coming in by airplane, 

in the middle of winter, into an unimproved airfield. That meant that there were 

days and there was one eight-day period like this that we couldn’t fly into Tuzla. 

Lastly, we had to get the main body in within 30 days and deploy them all over the 

country. To get them in, we had to have the ground LOC in. So we had to put a 

second package in directly on the river, before there was any base camp. 

Lastly, as I said, we had to bring the main body in. Unlike the base plan, which 

called for bringing in the national support element and establishing it and bringing 

everybody in through that and moving them in as facilities are built, none of that 

stuff happened because we had only two days’ notice against a treaty-defined 

deadline to have all this stuff in place within 30 days. 

Q. How did the delay in emplacing the bridge over the Sava River affect all of 

this? 

A. What it caused us to do was (to) worry. I mean, there were a lot more problems 

than crossing the Sava River. The French rail strike meant that the deep well rail 

cars that we needed were all trapped in France and we couldn’t get them out. Then 

there was an antinuclear protest that had nothing to do with us but which sabotaged 

the German rail lines and took out power across the German rail net for two days. 

Then there was the fact that this was the holiday season and most of the workers on 

the rail systems were on holiday and therefore could not generate the train capacity 

that we needed. That meant that we increased the amount of air delivery, taking 

things into country by air that we had not planned to take by air. We surged the 

Air Force. I’ll give you an engineer-related example. We knew that we needed 

AVLBs (Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge) in country to help us span culverts 
167

and other places where the road network had decayed. We found that, in many 

places, bridges and tunnels in former Warsaw Pact countries, through which we 

needed to pass, would not support movement of AVLBs. So we had to load AVLBs 

on C-17 aircraft, the first time it had ever been done. It hadn’t even been tested. 

We loaded them on board, on trailers, flew them into Hungary, linked them up with 

their launchers, which we moved by train down to the river, and then moved them 

into theater. We had to do lots of those sorts of things. 

Because we were delayed, we had to surge air and move units by air that we had 

not planned to move by air, principally the lighter stuff (such as) headquarters, 

signal, military police, and those sorts of things (in order) to get them in place when 

they were supposed to be in place. All that was done in marvelous fashion, frankly 

and all the bumps and bruises are fading now. It demonstrated the flexibility of 

our command and control system, tied in here with USAREUR, and tied in with 

every node along the way. Thus, day-by- day, hour-by- hour, we could talk about 

what we needed to change and what we needed to ship. On a daily basis, I would 

pick up the phone and call the Corps Main CP (Command Post) and say; “Change 

this, move this up, slow this down, move this over here, and accelerate that” based 

on guidance from the command group. Then I would shift and prioritize, far more 

than I should have, probably, in terms of my position in the chain of command 

but nonetheless, I did it based on what the general and the CINCUSAREUR 

(Commander in Chief) directed to make sure we had the resources that we needed 

on the ground. 

Q. Is it a pure logistics function?

A. The operation was deployment, so the “operators” took charge of the 

operation. Much of it was done through logistical headquarters. General Wright’s 

headquarters1

 was working through the CG (commanding general) and the G3 

(operations officer), not the G4 (logistics officer). 

Q. Was there a great deal of coordination required between Corps and USAREUR, 

right from the beginning?

A. Believe me, it was not pretty. One of the things we learned from it was that 

we needed a much more integrated effort. How do I say this politely? There were 

two things that we had to overcome. Number one, the USAREUR staff had been 

through this many times; “we’re going/we’re not going.” So when they got the 

word that we were going, quite frankly, there was some doubt on the part of the 

staff that we really were going. Secondly, when the CINC2

 designated General 

Abrams3

 as his lead agent and as the deputy CG for this effort and General Abrams 

and his staff began the development of the operation, getting back integrated with 

USAREUR was harder than it should have been. 
168

It wasn’t until late in the game, well into the planning process, that the USAREUR 

staff began to get integrated and involved and it frankly took us the month of 

December (1995), while executing, to fully synchronize and get everything in 

place. In the month of January (1996), we are initiating many of the policies and 

procedures that were generated late in December as part of this process and are 

only now bringing them on line. 

One of the issues that we had with Brown and Root involved cost estimates. 

When we arrived in theater, we were not allowed to do recons in Bosnia. What we 

did was send a couple of people down from 1st Armored Division and they were 

able to root around for a couple of days. They came back with a plan to build eight 

base camps, big base camps with 3,000 soldiers in each camp. When we got there, 

we found that, because of the compartmentalization of the terrain and the extensive 

mining and so forth, that we couldn’t build eight base camps but had to build 22 or 

23. That was another whole ball game in terms of planning and execution. That 

meant that the infrastructure development changed significantly. 

There are efficiencies that can be gained in big operations if all your material is 

developed on one site. Brown and Root, for example, had promised, as a contractor, 

that once they were working on site, they could deliver X-thousand housing units 

within Y amount of time but that was based upon going to one place. Every time 

you stopped and went to another place, you built in an additional transportation 

requirement, an additional site clearance requirement, and so on. Your up-front 

investment for site set-up was the same, whether it was for a 10,000-man camp 

or a 200-man camp. What we lost, then, were the efficiencies associated with our 

inability to build big camps. 

Again, I would point out that, in the wintertime, based on the amount of snowfall 

and the extent of the mining of the area and the lack of infrastructure, there were 

other problems. If we were in the States, we would go to a mall parking lot, with 

acres of asphalt. We would clear it very quickly and set up very quickly. Here, 

we couldn’t do that. We were working in waist-deep mud in some places. We 

were working in snow that was falling at an average of 14 inches per snowfall. 

The problem here was that, unable to conduct recons, we were unable to confirm 

or deny what conditions were going to be at our tentatively selected base camp 

sites. All we could do was go on whatever reports we had. When we got on the 

ground, we found, frankly, that we could not do this according to plan. We created 

requirements for new base camps that we did not have. 

Let me go back to this business with the Sava River and Camp Harmon. Camp 

Harmon was not part of the plan. We were going to bring everybody to the ISB 

(Intermediate Staging Base) but when, instead of, effectively six weeks’ notice, we 

got three days’ notice and we had to deploy directly to the river, we had to get those 

kids out of the weather. So now, we had to build a base camp that was not called 
169

for before and which consumed materials and other things and time. At the time 

that the dike broke, during the Sava flood, it was less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit 

down there. It was snowing, alternating with freezing rain. We had to get those 

kids out of the weather and once it thawed out down there, the mud conditions 

were horrible. You sank in up to your ankles.

Q. How did it happen that someone selected a site that was on the river side of 

the levee? 

A. I can’t comment on what the local command did. The levee was here, though 

and the site was on the other side of it. The rest of it was engineer work area. 

The rest of the guys were up on the high ground. The engineers were at the river, 

working through the night, so for warming and so on they put their local camp at 

their work site. The problem was that when the levee broke, it flooded the low 

ground area where these guys were set up and operating, in close proximity to the 

river. They were going to operate the bridges from there. They did not anticipate 

the flood. It was the greatest flooding in 70 years and that was only because they 

had only kept records for 70 years. Remember, this was not the flood season. The 

flood season is in March and so on and so on. It was a peculiar set of circumstances 

that came together. 

It was not so much the flooding that hurt us, though, as the requirement to build 

new camps. We looked at modular housing, UN modular housing. Well, the UN 

sold those units to somebody else, although we had a cash offer on the table before 

anybody else did. I guess they did that because they realized the United States 

could fend for itself, while some of these other, smaller, nations couldn’t. So they 

prioritized the distribution of those things to the smaller nations. 

Q. Did you find yourself having to rely on LOGCAP more than was originally 

envisioned? 

A. No. Two things are true. We found out that LOGCAP couldn’t deliver. They 

are not an initial entry capability. They couldn’t deliver in a timely enough 

fashion and the conditions they found themselves working in were a lot tougher 

than they thought they would find. On 10 December (1995), I was at a briefing 

where the LOGCAP said they could probably get in the initial tentage requirement 

for troops in about five days for about 3,000 plus soldiers. It wasn’t until about 

18 December, that they were able to achieve that. No one was able to anticipate 

because we could not get in ahead of time to do a proper recon and make surveys 

that the soil conditions were so unstable that we had to bring in literally tons of 

gravel to stabilize the ground before we could put the living facilities in. We were 

also hampered because we couldn’t get contracting authority. We could not get 

contracting authority until after we started deploying. 
170

Q. Why was that? 

A. There was a series of political events that had to take place before we were able 

to do this. General Crouch took great personal risk, I believe, and showed great 

moral courage when he began posturing the force when higher headquarters, which 

will remain nameless, said; “Why are you doing this?” They told us; “You’re not 

going to go.” This was two days before we were told to move. General Crouch 

told us to go ahead and posture the force. 

You will remember that there was a continuing resolution going on at that 

time and because of that, we could not get contracting authority. There was a 

government shutdown and we were told not to spend any money. So here we 

were, getting ready to invade the world (with) “invade” being a poor choice of 

terms...getting ready to deploy, when in fact, there was no financial authorization 

to spend money. In fact, we were on the ground with our advanced party for two 

or three days before they were authorized to let a contract. Meanwhile, behind us, 

the momentum was building up as the forces kept stacking up, getting ready to go. 

Q. Once the senior leaders saw the situation of too many people pouring into the 

ISB, why weren’t some troops held back? 

A. We did that and all those conditions I have just finished describing were also 

doing some of that for us. Our biggest problem, early on, was getting the number 

of forces we needed deployed.

The other problem was that, since we were going to separate sites, we sent more 

than 5,000 soldiers directly to the river, bypassing the ISB entirely. Those were the 

guys who were living at Camp Harmon under those terrible conditions for those 

first two and a half weeks as we attempted to get the bridge in. 

From a public relations perspective and a troop care perspective, the worst thing 

about the delay in getting the bridge in was that we couldn’t release some of those 

troops out of Camp Harmon to go down range, to relieve the pressure on the living 

conditions at Harmon. Remember, too, that every tent that you bring down is 

competing for space with every meal that you bring down, which is competing 

for space with water you are bringing down, which is competing for space with 

troops you are bringing down, who have to be there in 30 days. We were constantly 

finding ourselves juggling all those things to make sure we got the capabilities we 

needed. Again, it’s like anything else. If you can’t let a contract, how long does it 

take a civilian contractor to begin delivering supplies? So it took a while. All of 

these things made Brown and Root and the LOGCAP people less responsive early 

on than we needed. Some of it was their fault and some of it was our fault. Ours, 

in terms of the organization and lead times and so on. 
171

Q. What was the LOGCAP’s responsiveness once the decision was made to 

increase the number of camps in Bosnia? 

A. What eventually happened, by the end of December, we had been there for 

about 20 days contract-wise. They were beginning to be able to meet their service 

contracts, primarily. They were not able to meet their construction contracts. They 

had to obtain materials, import a work force, buy tractors and dozers and all the 

other things necessary to do the work and they were still competing for space 

going down range. I can’t overemphasize that this is not a matter of going out to 

Cleveland and building a work site. This is all under conditions where you dare 

not drive off of the roads. If you don’t own the ground and it is not cleared, then 

you cannot move on it. There is waist- high snow and if not snow, (it’s) mud. All 

of those things meant that their construction ability was limited. 

The other thing that we were able to do was bring in military construction units; 

the Navy’s Seabees, the Air Force Red Horse teams, and the Army’s construction 

engineers. They were able to take over some of the camp building in an expanded 

role. Initially, they were brought in to do some limited things and suddenly, we 

realized their ability was considerable. They were on site, they were fast, and they 

were efficient. While LOGCAP was developing its capability, we transferred to 

the military engineers the responsibility for building about half of those camps. 

Q. So that wasn’t originally planned? 

A. No. They were just going to do some short-term things and depart the theater. 

We held those units for 30 to 60 days (about 30 days is probably more accurate) 

longer than they and we had anticipated. They facilitated the building of those 

additional camps. Conversely, the LOGCAP was assigned responsibility for eight 

or nine camps; you need to check with the engineers for exact figures. 

Q. In some cases, did Brown and Root came in and complete construction of a 

camp that the military engineers had begun?

A. Brown and Root had the requirement to take over servicing and running of the 

camps once they were built. When we went from eight to 23, you obviously have 

three times as many to service and take care of. Our purpose was to get soldiers 

out of the mud and out of the weather. On a couple of occasions, not many, Brown 

and Root came in and did the finishing touches. 

Q. I attended the last awards board meeting in Winchester and it struck me that, 

when people gave their presentations, they would give the programmed dates...

A. They promised us two weeks to build camps. Typically, it took 17 to 20 days. 

Again, no one fully anticipated, I think, the time it would take to get from one 

camp site to another and to clear the camp sites, and what the impact of the weather 

would be, (and) things of that sort. 
172

Q. The issue I am driving at is that, under the early planning, services were 

to be turned on once the construction was completed but the situation you have 

just described made that impossible because the troops were already there and so 

Brown and Root was sort of pushed into turning on the services before construction 

was completed. I am looking for your perspective on that. 

A. That’s exactly right. When I told you that we had three weeks (actually six 

weeks) of plan lead, had we been able to do that, then we would have been in a 

position to do a lot of these things we were talking about but we weren’t given that 

option. 

Troops were on the ground at the same time infrastructure development was going 

on, to meet the treaty requirements. They were in very bad weather conditions and 

we had to get the camps up. We had to provide them some tiered level services. 

The first thing was to get the soldiers out of the mud and do basic sanitation. 

Secondly, we wanted to put together these mobile, modular units, on trucks, to 

bring them showers and improved latrine facilities, so that if you couldn’t bring it 

to a soldier’s camp, he could go to it. We wanted to make sure that, every week or 

10 days, every soldier could get to a shower and laundry facility. The last piece of 

that was the standing up of the final, static capability at each site. I don’t want to 

say that Brown and Root whine a lot but they whine a lot. They were asked to do 

things and were paid for it and they delivered. I was surprised to read in Stars and 

Stripes about the potential for paying them bonuses for incentives for construction. 

My view is, with all due respect, I would have cut their contract pay for failure to 

deliver what they promised. 

Given all the things that we changed and allowing for that, nonetheless, that 

which didn’t change, didn’t get done. The operational requirement was to take 

care of the soldier. The contractor requirement was instead of having the ability 

to wait until everything was done and then bringing in these services and have a 

ribbon-cutting exercise - instead, build me a place to sleep 300 soldiers, bring me 

a couple of latrines and shower units, and then we’ll put in another 600 and more. 

Q. Will this situation affect your planning in the future? 

A. As a lesson learned, certainly. The thing we have taken away from this and 

this is new for this theater remembering that this theater has not been responsible 

for a lot of deployments of this type, is that we do not have an expeditionary 

force capability in Brown and Root. They are a very nice follow-on and develop 

capability but they are not an entry-level capability. Therefore, we have to take a 

look at what we can bring with us to provide us with the capability to operate in 

very harsh conditions. 
173

Currently, our assessment is that the current CTA (Common Table of Allowances) 

of equipment, tentage, heaters, and other things that are available to soldiers, are 

inadequate for harsh conditions. You may use Brown and Root to come in and 

upgrade but you must bring with you the things that are necessary for soldiers to 

live and operate under harsh conditions for a sustained period of time. This isn’t 

like California, where, if you want to see snow, you drive up into the mountains 

and enjoy it until you are cold, wet, and tired, and then drive back home to the 

beach. Here, you work in the snow for 12 or 14 or 16 hours, guess what, you’re 

still out there for the next five, six, or seven days. 

One of the remarkable success stories of the deployment is that because of the 

efforts of so many people, we only had three or four cold weather injuries, only one 

of which was actually a cold weather injury. The doctors identified the others as 

only “cold weather related.” We had an instance of level-2 frostbite and the chain 

of command took care of it immediately and we discovered that this soldier had a 

history of frostbite and hadn’t told anybody about it. He was treated and released 

after a few days. This was from a force of 20,000, operating in full winter, from a 

standing start. 

Q. Are you also looking at deficiencies in the engineer force? 

A. Well, yes. There are some issues as to whether the US Army needs, and this 

is Bryant speaking now - not an official position, a construction engineering 

capability organic, an expeditionary engineer force that can go in and do what Red 

Horse and the Seabees do. We drew construction engineer equipment out of the 

POMCUS4

 stocks in Belgium and bridging stocks. So we used all of that stuff, as 

an example of the value of prepositioning. Whether or not it should be afloat or 

whatever, is not to the point. If we had gone into the Adriatic coast, then we would 

be talking about wanting POMCUS stocks afloat. That’s not important to us, in 

this case but yes, prepositioned stocks are important. The force structure to use it is 

the issue. It is arguable and it is an age-old debate, again, this is Bryant speaking. I 

was at the Engineer School when the E-Force5

 was under discussion. Whether we 

have enough construction horizontal and vertical engineers in the force, is an open 

question. Where they are, in the active force or reserve components, is also an 

issue. Another issue, for example, is that we did not get reserve component call-up 

until 16 December (1995), the day we were supposed to go. 

Q. Is a lot of the engineer capability in the reserves?

A. Exactly, and it takes two weeks to 30 days to generate those guys as a force. 

That would have put us all the way into mid-January, six weeks after we deployed, 

and at our operational requirement date before we could have generated any 

engineer construction capability out of the reserve component. We were able to 
174

get an active component CSE (Combat Support Equipment) company but again, 

there is very little of that in the force structure. 

Q. There has been some concern that, in this instance, the LOGCAP, which was 

designed to augment CSS functions, was used actually to replace CSS forces. My 

question is what you would say to those who argue that contracting should be 

written into the plans as part of the deploying force. 

A. You know, it would be interesting to do a cost benefit analysis of $500 million 

to Brown and Root or the maintenance of x-number of additional forces. The truth 

of the matter is that we are in a force cap environment, be it Army end strength, 

or operational deployment. Therefore, I think it is reasonable to believe that 

LOGCAP or some form of contractor support will always be with us and that it is 

therefore something that always should be built into the plan. The issue is whether 

we can build it into the initial entry or whether it is a follow-on, support, and 

improve capability. Once the force is there and operating, the LOGCAP can fall 

in behind and support it. There is a second point. As I recall, the estimate is that it 

takes the two weeks to come on line after a contract is signed. Well, that is what it 

took them. They tried to do it faster, to their credit, but it took that long because it 

takes time to hire the work force, solicit the local contracts, and all the other things. 

You can draw any lesson you want from this but the key lesson is that, if you 

have to have it right away, you can’t depend on a contractor to do it. Had we 

deployed in June so that guys could sleep out under the stars without a tremendous 

requirement for a base camp and the first thing we had to bring to them was latrines 

and showers, then we could worry about tentage and all those other things such as 

reinforced tentage, later. It would have been a different equation. The answer is, 

yes, I think you have to plan for LOGCAP and that LOGCAP has to be a part of 

the operational plan. You certainly have to budget for it. As to the specifics of how 

contractors are into built into the plan, the only thing I would say is that you can’t 

count on them for initial entry forces. 

Q. Is there a difference in having LOGCAP as part of the plan and considering it 

as part of the force structure?

A. Absolutely. What if they decide not to take the contract? What if they can’t 

hire the workers they need? What if they can’t get the materials? All of that 

happened to us in this thing, in terms of timeliness. The answer is that, if you have 

to have it, you can’t depend on the contracts. Therefore we went to the Navy and 

the Air Force to get construction engineers to do the job. 

Q. How much of a factor was incremental funding for LOGCAP? 

A. Beyond my pay grade and scope. My job was to watch as requirements 

were dropped on them and to measure, for the command group, how well all that 
175

was going during the execution. My answer to that is that things were going as 

expected, which was not very well. 

Q. Did you have any dealing, later in the operation, with the teams the Corps of 

Engineers sent over to do the river evaluations and so on? As a planner, did you 

see that information? 

A. Yes. I was involved in that. I was tangentially involved. I don’t want to 

overstate my importance. The answer, again, was that it was good but it was late. 

We had projections on the river, going in. The average float bridge set is 240 

meters worth of bridging. We projected that the river, at the time we would cross, 

would be almost 300 meters. Therefore, we brought almost 380 meters of bridging. 

Essentially, we almost doubled the capacity of an engineer bridge company and 

ordered a second bridge company just in case! 

What happened was something well beyond our expectations, when the flood 

came with the breaking of the levee, which created a secondary water obstacle 

for us to get across, to get to the actual river banks became an additional problem. 

We had to bridge both of them and we ended up bridging more than 600 meters of 

water, bigger than the Rhine River and bigger than the Mississippi. It was bigger 

than the George Washington Bridge in New York City, across the Hudson and 

the conditions were such that access was hard and therefore we flew in bridging 

sections by Chinook and so on. 

Q. What about soil specialists? It wasn’t until later in the operation that the Corps 

of Engineers got a request for soil specialists. Was that something you should have 

had earlier on?

A. Yes but I don’t know if it would have helped. Sure, the one thing we found was 

that soil was unstable all over the region. Could we have determined that ahead 

of time? Yes. Did we have a chance to recon anything? No. So, had I had 25 soil 

specialists here with me at the beginning of the operation, they would have sat in 

Central Region with the rest of us, without permission to go and the ground was 

frozen and covered with snow at that point. Furthermore, when you’re sitting on 

a road, looking at a field that is mined or possibly mined, you don’t go out in the 

middle of that field and take soil samples. With hindsight, it would have been nice 

to have those soil specialists with us but as a practical matter, it was tangential. 

Q. Is there any other issue you would like to highlight? 

A. I think we have touched on most of the things that would be particularly 

germane to the engineer community. The issues of force structure, its allocation, 

the availability of construction engineer capability or construction-trained forces 

as expeditionary forces, are key. The idea of improving CTA capability to allow 

the force to occupy ground is important. We received these Force Protector Shelter 
176

sets, only to find that they were set up for temperate zones. I think the engineer 

equipment worked well. The ACE (Armored Combat Engineer Vehicle) worked 

well. There is an issue of oversize vehicles. When we deployed from Central 

Region, we could not bring down the oversize equipment by train but had to move 

it by commercial haul. So when we buy this commercial equipment for horizontal 

construction and it’s oversized, that’s great in the United States and it’s not bad 

when you’re going by ship but it is absolutely marginal when going by rail into an 

undeveloped theater. 

Notes 

1. 21st TAACOM (Forward), part of the National Support Element at Taszar/Kaposvar, 

Hungary, was under the command of Brigadier General Samuel Kindred, commanding 

general of 3d COSCOM, the staff of which constituted the TAACOM Forward. The 

parent 21st TAACOM, with logistical responsibility for the entire theater, was located in 

Kaiserslautern, Germany, and commanded by Major General James M. Wright.

2. General William Crouch, Commander in Chief, United States Army, Europe, and 

Seventh Army. 

3. Lieutenant General John N. Abrams, Commanding General, V Corps, and Deputy 

Commanding General, USAREUR (Forward). 

4. Prepositioning of Materiel Configured in Unit Sets. To facilitate rapid expansion 

of US ground forces in overseas theaters, complete brigade sets of equipment have been 

placed in secure storage sites in NATO countries and in ships, afloat. Soldiers rapidly 

deployed from the United States can then draw the equipment in theater, rather than tying 

up limited heavy air and sea lift assets moving that equipment form CONUS. POMCUS 

draw became a regular feature of the annual REFORGER exercises during the Cold War 

and remains an critical mission essential task for current missions envisioned for V Corps. 

5. A Corps of Engineers study for the Engineer Force required by current and anticipated 

Army, post-Cold War, requirements. 
177

Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Peter Schifferle, Chief, War Plans, 

Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, V Corps, Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Major Richard Thurston, 90th Military History Detachment, 

16 February 1996, at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, Germany

Q. Sir, how long have you been in your present position? 

A. I have been in G3 (operations) Plans for 18 months. I have been Chief of the 

War Plans Division since June of 1995. 

Q. What was your first involvement with Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR? 

A. My first experience with JOINT ENDEAVOR, as it ended up being executed, 

was in August of 1995. Upon returning from a TDY (temporary duty) trip in CONUS 

(Continental United States) in order to work on the operation plan for 1002 (for 

Southwest Asia) I began to be involved in the planning for implementation of the 

peace accord in Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

Q. Would you please discuss the planning process? 

A. When I came back, the battle staff had been working with Lieutenant Colonel 

Al Bryant1

 for about three weeks on the beginning of a mission analysis. Initially, 

the information flow from US Army, Europe (USAREUR) was that we were to do 

a mission analysis for executing the Implementation Force portion of the peace 

accords. The first major part of that was what we first referred to as the “train 

and arm” piece, which initially was the priority for planning. We were to use 

portions of the 3d Infantry Division in Bosnia-Herzegovina to train and arm the 

Bosnian Federation forces to serve as a counterpart to the Bosnian-Serb forces 

at the completion of the peace accord. Parallel to that was the development of 

the IFOR (Implementation Force) planning, which was also part of the mission 

analysis being conducted by Colonel Bryant and the battle staff when I returned 

from the August CONUS trip. My initial involvement was assistance with that 

mission analysis piece, in particular with “train and arm.” After they looked at 

the acronym for “train and arm,” they decided to call it “equip and train.” So it 

went from “T&A” to “T&E.” Planning for that continued, and I continued in the 

support role for the mission analysis until about mid-September (1995). 

At that point, two things occurred. The first was that the “equip and train” 

mission died due to the reading in Europe of the congressional activities. The 

planning here in V Corps for “equip and train” was by that time down to the level 

where the V Corps and 3d Infantry Division plan had been briefed back in the 

Pentagon to the Chairman, JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff). At the conclusion of that 

briefing process, we continued to develop the plan but basically stopped in midSeptember. We were told to put the plan on the shelf and that whether we executed 

it would be a political decision. At that time, it looked as if that political decision 

would not occur. 
178

The second thing that happened in mid-September was that a selected portion 

of the battle staff traveled to Grafenwoehr (Germany) to brief the commanding 

general of the Corps on the mission analysis so far on the IFOR mission. General 

Abrams was not satisfied with the IFOR mission analysis. He considered that the 

mission analysis that had been done by the Corps staff had been too tactical in 

nature and too operationally concerned, that we had made a mistake in basically 

conducting a mission analysis for what would become the Task Force Eagle 

commander, as opposed to doing a mission analysis for the V Corps commander, 

who would eventually become the deputy commander of USAREUR (Forward). 

What General Abrams wanted us to do instead, was to do an operational 

significance mission analysis that analyzed the crosswalk between the strategic 

level of warfare and the tactical level of warfare, so that we could assist General 

Nash in implementing the IFOR tasks. We also erred in not providing sufficient 

mission analysis and staff estimate information in order to prepare for the 

deployment, the preparation, the training, and the validation of the units to go 

down there. General Abrams saw his role as twofold; the first being a headquarters 

to assist General Nash in coping with the operational level of war, and probably 

initially more important, preparing the force to deploy to Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

The briefing which I observed from here by video teleconference was given by 

Colonel Bryant out at Grafenwoehr in the forward command post. General Abrams 

began to express his dissatisfaction with the briefing product on about the tenth or 

twelfth slide of the brief, when he began to ask questions about the operational 

significance of certain actions and the preparation, validation, and deployment of 

the force. Colonel Bryant, because the battle staff had done a more tactical level 

analysis, was unable to address those questions adequately and accurately. At that 

time, Colonel Bryant asked the Corps commander if he should stop the briefing 

and come back when the staff had redone the briefing in the terms of reference 

the commander had laid out. General Abrams replied that he wanted to see the 

product as it was but then through the duration of the briefing, he continued to ask 

the same sorts of questions relating to operational significance and preparation for 

deployment, which Colonel Bryant continued to be unable to answer. At that time, 

Colonel Bryant said that the battle staff would get back to the Corps commander 

with another mission analysis. He began that process. The battle staff stayed at 

Grafenwoehr for five or six days and then returned to Heidelberg and continued 

the mission analysis here. 

At approximately the same time, the mission analysis briefing was done on 6 

September (1995), according to my calendar, and sometime shortly thereafter, the 

Corps commander said that we should begin development of a decision support 

template. 
179

I think that in doing this, he was attempting to redirect the battle staff to 

development of a decision support template as opposed to a mission analysis. 

I believe General Abrams thought we were too far into the preparation for the 

mission, in that the (1st Armored) Division had already been notified that it might 

have to execute the mission and the Division was on the verge, in mid-September, 

of beginning a series of training events to prepare itself for that mission. Thus it 

was too late to back all the way up to mission analysis. Instead, a way to drive 

the battle staff to produce the information that he needed to prepare and deploy 

the force and to become an operationally significant headquarters was to prepare 

a decision support template. Colonel Bryant assigned that role to me, and I 

began that development here in Heidelberg around the 13th or 15th of September. 

The understanding that I have of the process of preparing a decision support 

template (DST) is that it is normally derived from the war-gaming that is conducted 

of an operations plan during the preparation of that plan. The DST is designed to 

provide decision points for the commander, so that the commander, by accessing 

sets of information, can understand the sequence of decisions that he is going to be 

faced with, the interrelationships of those decisions with previous and subsequent 

decisions and, perhaps most importantly, an awareness of what events or what 

passage of time will cause him to be presented with a set of decisions to be made. 

That provides a decision basis for the commander. 

A DST also does two other things. It forces the staff to come to terms with 

recommendations that they see they will have to provide when the commander is 

faced with a set of decisions. Because you are preparing a DST early on in the 

process, it also forces the staff to come to grips with how the process is going to 

change and mutate over time and what events (friendly, enemy, and environmental) 

will cause the commander to make decisions, and what recommendations the staff 

is likely to give at each decision point. The other thing that, by extension, the DST 

does is that it forces the staff to put the preparation, execution, and redeployment 

of the force into a discrete set of timelines, a discrete set of events that are driven 

by previous events, and an awareness of how the environment will change. It 

basically drives the refinement of the staff estimates that were supposed to have 

been begun during the mission analysis process. I have here a note on my calendar 

that on the 10th of September, there was a briefing to the commanding general. I 

remember briefing an initial feedback to the CG by video teleconference from here. 

I do not see it reflected as such on my calendar but I can probably look through my 

files and come up with some specific dates. The commander and I talked by VTC 

(video teleconference) and I gave him an initial lay down of where I was going to 

go with the DST. At that time, he told me to embrace the operational and strategic 

levels of war and make sure that I was running a good cross-walk of those levels 

as I developed the DST. I then began to work with the battle staff back here to 

develop the DST. I defined the purpose for it on what became page C-2-2 of the 

campaign plan, entitled “Decisions in a Strategic and Operational Environment.” 
180

We cross-walked responsibility for which pieces of the pie and what the DST 

would be able to support by doing that. That particular slide was briefed to the 

commander and he agreed that it was the appropriate thing to do. We then went on 

to develop the DST itself. So the DST became the driving force for my participation 

in the planning process. It eventually became obvious that the decision points that 

the battle staff had identified as it went through the execution were valid ones. 

Although not every decision that was made during the execution was addressed on 

the DST, there were no decisions on the DST that did not have to be addressed. So 

we had managed to identify numerous decisions that did face the CG and which 

faced General Crouch,2

 and the subordinate commanders. As a result, I think the 

DST had some validity. Interestingly enough, from the standpoint of the doctrine 

of a DST, I think the DST even began to drive some of the events. 

An early DST decision point that the staff identified as we went through the 

process was to conduct a planning exercise in order to synchronize the activities of 

the 1st Armored Division, the TAACOM, and the COSCOM. At one point, some 

time in September or early October, the commanding general through the G3, told 

us to put together a planning conference. After he had been briefed on an initial 

product on the DST which included a decision that he would make or be forced to 

confront on whether or not we should conduct a planning conference, he told us to 

go ahead and conduct that conference. That’s not to take credit, you understand, 

for the CG taking a decision, but to point out that we identified a requirement that 

we were later told to execute and this shows that the DST had some validity. 

My next major involvement in the planning effort, although I continued to 

develop and refine the DST all the way through early November, was in the 

planning conference that occurred at Grafenwoehr on or about 16-18 October 

(1995). There was more to the DST than just that. The DST also served as a 

functional check for timeline development. We became very concerned with 

the timeline development because basically, of three things. The first reason for 

concern with timeline development of the OPLAN was that from the standpoint 

of the US JCS crisis action procedure, we had already broken the system. Or it 

seemed to us, anyway, in September and October that the system had been broken. 

A CINC’s assessment had been made at USEUCOM and we had been told, through 

USAREUR, to execute planning but there was no information coming out through 

the CJCS formal system. 

It turns out that there was a lot of back-channel traffic among the general officers 

in developing how we were going to approach the task. Eventually it became a 

situation where the Army was inputting information into the National Command 

Authority System for the creation of the treaty itself but that did occur a bit later. 

It turns out, if my memory serves me correctly, that there was a CJCS warning 

order which was issued, I believe in early October but we did not know that 
181

occurred until some time in mid-November. So there was a CJCS warning order 

on the street. It had gone to USEUCOM but USEUCOM had not even transferred 

it to USAREUR, as far as I know, until about a month later. It turns out that we 

really didn’t miss anything by doing that but it left us thinking that we were doing 

something here in Europe that the CJCS crisis action procedure was not authorizing 

us to do. It turns out that we were wrong, that there was one but we didn’t get 

it communicated to us. Later on, when the execution came down the road, we 

began to receive more formal taskings and more formal requirements from the JCS 

system. Initially, in September and October, it looked as if Europe was aware but 

the Pentagon really wasn’t. 

The next thing about timelines that concerned us was the NATO piece of it. We 

identified that, since this was going to be a NATO operation, we had a conflict 

between the US unilateral system for notification and alert procedures and the 

NATO system for activation of an OPLAN. We anticipated that the NATO system 

would be well behind the US unilateral system and it turns out that it was. So we 

kept trying to be aware of where we were in the NATO OPLAN activation process. 

The awareness and identification of the NATO OPLAN activation process led us 

into a third problem that we looked at as we developed the DST timeline. 

That problem was the apparent use by AFSOUTH of a pre-existing OPLAN to 

serve as a basis for the execution of the IFOR mission. The pre-existing OPLAN 

that they looked at was 40104. One of the reasons, evidently, that they took the 

40104 OPLAN and activated it and adjusted it to serve as the IFOR plan was 

that it had already been approved by the NATO OPLAN approval process. That 

meant that there was, at least for planning purposes, a force associated with it 

and they had already gone through the procedures of getting that plan approved 

by the North Atlantic Council. What we identified in the Corps battle staff was a 

serious problem with that. OPLAN 40104 was designed for the rapid movement 

of an extraction force into Bosnia-Herzegovina. That extraction force would gain 

much of its sustainment from the logistics of the UN Protective (Protection) Force 

which was there, would extract the UNPROFOR, and then would rapidly extract 

itself from the region. The duration of that OPLAN, 40104, was somewhere in the 

vicinity of 90 days. 

There was a command and control arrangement, there was a logistics support 

arrangement, and there was an arrangement for transportation into and out of the 

region that matched the mission requirement for rapid extraction and also matched 

the mission requirement as far as troop structure went. They took that command 

and control and logistics apparatus and to a lesser extent the transportation 

apparatus, transferred 40104 into what we initially called 40104X and then 40105 

sometime in November, and turned it into an OPLAN for an extremely different 

mission and a different troop structure and a one-year duration, as opposed to a 90-

day duration. When we identified that, we said that was a major problem and we 

began to track the fallout from that. 
182

The third and last timeline thing that we were concerned with in V Corps was 

our ability to execute an OPLAN based upon getting early enough notification 

to manage that execution. That became the driver for additional briefings that I 

gave to the Corps chief of staff, G3, and commanding general. The bulk of my 

involvement in the first two weeks of October was in development of the DST 

and supporting timelines for that. Then, when I went to Grafenwoehr in order to 

conduct the planning conference for that, which was attended by the G3 of the 1st 

Armored Division, the G3 of SETAF (Southern European Task Force), numerous 

lieutenant colonel- and major-level planners from COSCOM, TAACOM, the 

TAMCA (Theater Army Movement Control Agency), and from the Corps. In those 

three days, 16-18 October, we went through the execution process of what had 

become the OPLAN. It was determined that we had at least four different general 

concepts on the street. We had a general concept which had been developed by 

General Nash and his planners for the execution inside what became known as the 

“box,” the B-H AOR. We had a Corps plan, which was how we thought it was 

going to happen. There was a SETAF plan, which was how General Nix3 and his 

staff thought it was going to happen, and then there was a 21st TAACOM plan 

which was basically standing by, waiting for someone to tell them exactly what it 

was that they needed to do. 

Q. How were these plans rationalized? 

A. Let’s pull up some plans on my computer, 40105. I gave a daily update as a 

result of the planning conference. According to my computer records, now, the 

conference was 17-19 October, and I think that is accurate. I went to Grafenwoehr 

on Sunday the 15th. United States Southern European Task Force, based in Vicenza, 

Italy and set up the facility that we used on the 16th, then had the conference on the 

17th, 18th, and 19th. The results of the conference were briefed to Colonel Casey,4

the Corps Chief of Staff, each evening about 1900 hours and then the results of 

the conference were also briefed to the Corps commander sometime after that. It 

looks like, according to my file, they were briefed to the Corps commander on 22 

October, which would be a Sunday. The reason we had four different plans, my 

personal opinion, is the fault of USAREUR. USAREUR did not issue an order, a 

commander’s intent, of task organization. 

USAREUR told its various subordinate headquarters to commence planning. 

Why did USAREUR do that? I think they did it because that was pretty much 

the guidance they got from higher headquarters. The key is that it was such a 

rapidly changing, rapidly emerging scenario, with multiple chains of commands 

issuing information. The NATO chain of command through the ARRC was issuing 

information to 1st Armored Division. Meanwhile, the US chain of command was 

issuing information through the CINC’s system. The general officers, at the 

same time, were conferring through personal meetings and telephone calls. The 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense were making trips over 
183

here and were talking about things as they developed. There were numerous levels 

of knowledge and it was very difficult to have a consistent level of information 

across the board. It was indeed crisis action planning, without having the crisis 

action system activated. 

It was NATO crisis planning without having the NATO crisis action system 

activated. In fact, the whole NATO system probably did not kick in until the 

first week in November (1995). So we were attempting to prepare an American 

force for inclusion in the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps without having the ARRC 

authorized yet to begin deliberate planning. According to my files and you will 

have copies of these briefings labeled “CG Update,” 17, 18, and 19 October, which 

were actually given to the chief of staff - the task and purpose that I briefed to 

the Corps Chief of Staff on the evening of 17 October was to synchronize Task 

Force Lion, which was SETAF by a different name, and Task Force Eagle planning 

to assist the force preparation and planning. This was the role of V Corps and 

USAREUR and to assist the ARRC’s execution, to refine the force packages, and 

to synchronize the logistics support. 

So the first, unstated, mission was to figure out what Lion and Eagle were supposed 

to do. Two different headquarters were trying to be coordinated by V Corps, 

although Lion did not belong to V Corps for anything, and Eagle only belonged to 

V Corps until TOA (transfer of authority) occurred and the division task force was 

transferred to the authority of the ARRC. That is certainly an interesting way to 

do things. In the best of all possible worlds, the NATO headquarters, the ARRC, 

would have stood up and would have planned the operation and then would have 

given the requirements for the operation to the troop-contributing nations. The 

troops-contributing nations would then have sorted out how they were going to get 

their forces into the AOR. Because of the US push to have US forces prepared and 

because of the diplomatic efforts on the part of the United States, the lead nation 

to develop the Dayton Peace Accords, we had a situation where NATO was about 

45 days behind the United States in planning. We could not wait for the ARRC to 

develop its plan because had we waited, we could not have been ready to execute. 

Partially in terms of the deployment, preparation of the transportation network, etc. 

but even more so in terms of preparation of the force structure. General Crouch 

and General Abrams were very specific in having the force structure deploying to 

Bosnia-Herzegovina properly trained for the operation, which was very different 

than the training that 1st Armored Division and Corps troops were undergoing in 

order to fulfill their JSCAP (joint service capability plan) requirements. 

To sort out what kind of training we needed and to sort out our deployment 

system, we needed to be ahead of the ARRC. Task Force Lion comes in, in a pretty 

coincidental and serendipitous way. Lion came into the situation because General 

Nix was tasked in the spring of 1995 to prepare his force and SETAF for an in 

extremis extraction of UNPROFOR from various enclaves. We were looking at 
184

Zepa, Srebrenica, and Gorazde (in Bosnia) as the most likely areas. So you have 

a force structure that was prepared and validated by the USAREUR and V Corps 

chain of command at a series of exercises called MOUNTAIN SHIELD. Those 

exercises put together Task Force Lion, which constituted the headquarters and 

infantry force from SETAF plus an aviation heavy force from V Corps. 

So you had this force that was trained and validated and ready to deploy and was 

familiar with its mission statement for an in extremis extraction for the BosniaHerzegovina AOR in mid-October. We were thinking that we might be required 

to execute this thing sometime in mid-November. Therefore we had a force that 

was ready. A logical military planner would say that, if you have a force that is 

ready, that is the first force that you should put in and then prepare the additional 

forces until you get up to the force structure that you need for the actual operation. 

It makes sense. It made sense to us. I understand it made sense to the general 

officers who were involved. However, the more time we had to prepare the 1st 

Armored Division, in order for them to go in and conduct the IFOR execution 

mission, the better trained that division became and, naturally, the less reason there 

was to have Task Force Lion involved in the operation. 

So it became a situation where the change in time and the change in situation 

involved required an adjustment of the force structure. About the time that the 

planning conference was held at Grafenwoehr was about the time that we figured 

out that, given the change of mission -- it was not an extraction but was an 

occupation to conduct the tasks associated with the Peace Plan -- that Task Force 

Lion really did not have a role. That, indeed, the use of Task Force Lion would 

to a large extent be counterproductive and that although constituent parts of Task 

Force Lion were required for a successful execution of the operation, Task Force 

Lion, constituted as it had been for the extraction mission of UNPROFOR, was not 

appropriate and would have actually gotten in the way of the IFOR mission. One 

of the tasks, therefore, given to the planning group was to assess the suitability 

of the task organization that we started the planning group with. Our assessment 

eventually was that Task Force Lion did not have a role; that TF 3-325 Airborne 

Combat Team did have a major role in the plan but it would make much more 

sense if the role of the 3-325 Infantry was under command and control of the 1st 

Armored Division under Task Force Eagle. 

That was one of the major things that the planning group laid on the table for 

General Abrams to take back for discussions with General Crouch and General 

Nix. It turns out that the plan, as executed in December (1995), was pretty much as 

we envisioned. The 3-325 went in under command and control of General Nash as 

an early entry force to establish presence in Tuzla and allowed for General Nash’s 

initial headquarters down there under command of General Cherry to make the 

initial contact with the Joint Military Commissions and begin the process. 
185

The second thing that faced the planning group in mid-October was the much 

more difficult arrangement for the deployment of the force. The planning group 

was never really involved in the discussion for the employment of the force. That 

was in keeping with General Abrams’ requirement to think operationally and 

also the requirement given to him by, I believe, General Crouch, to assist in the 

deployment of the force but to leave the employment of Task Force Eagle up to the 

TF Eagle commander and the commander of the ARRC. 

Given that the Corps commander’s task was not to oversee the operational, the 

tactical, employment of Task Force Eagle, we were tasked then on the second or 

third day of the conference, having resolved the force structure of Lion and Eagle, 

to a large extent, to assess how to deploy the force in order for General Nash to 

employ the force in keeping with the ARRC commander’s desires. It turns out that 

this was a very complicated situation. It was complicated for two reasons. 

The first major complication was that we were moving a force due east by air, 

by land, and by rail transportation, which had never been assessed. We were, to a 

large extent, starting from absolutely zero, no planning having been done on this 

before September (1995). The earlier planning for the Vance-Owen Peace Plan 

- the 1st Armored Division plan - which had been done to a very detailed level 

in 1993 before I got to the Corps, was done based on sea transportation into the 

AOR and then deployment of the force from the Adriatic ports into the BosniaHerzegovina area. The initial assessment by the transportation planners was that, 

in an effort to do that simultaneously with the deployment of the remainder of the 

NATO force into there, given the poor condition of the road network, and given 

the limited capability of the ports, was that we would overwhelm the ports and 

overwhelm the roads coming out of the Adriatic. From both transportation and an 

operational standpoint, it was assessed as being more feasible for the United States 

to move in from the north. 

There were political factors as well. The POLAD, Ms. Anderson5

 and I, along 

with Colonel Casey and General Abrams, had discussions about the impact on 

the peace treaty itself if the United States did not have any basing or any transit 

through Croatia or Serbia. It was felt that, from an operational standpoint, it was 

a good idea to have the US forces come in through Croatia and perhaps even 

through Serbia, in order to involve those two nations in the peace process. So a 

combination of transportation feasibility and the political-military strategic level 

analysis as to how to best keep the peace agreement going, led us to thinking that 

the best approach was to enter Bosnia from the north. The problem was that it 

hadn’t been done before. So we started from square one, although preliminary 

work had been done since September, when the mission analysis began. The 

preliminary work had been done by everyone involved. 
186

The 21st TAACOM was about three weeks behind the Corps. I’m not sure 

exactly why they were so far behind the Corps but they were. Probably because 

of reluctance on the part of USAREUR to get the 21st TAACOM working on 

something that might or might not happen, to the possible detriment of their ongoing 

daily execution requirements as the support structure for USAREUR. However 

that may or may not have occurred, by the 17th of October, General Wright,6 the 

commander of the 21st TAACOM, had pretty much moved his planning staff, lock, 

stock, and barrel, to Grafenwoehr and they were fully engaged in the planning 

process with the Corps and division planners. 

So on 18 and 19 October, we went through to some considerable detail, how and 

where we would deploy the force in order to prepare it for entry into the AOR. 

A breakthrough in that discussion was made by General Wright’s planners, who 

came up with the idea of using Hungary as an initial staging base. After we had 

looked at that on 18 October, the planning group pretty much decided that, for a 

host of reasons, Hungary was, by a long way, the more preferable of the courses 

of action. 

We looked at deploying directly into Serbia and setting up an ISB in the vicinity 

of Belgrade. 

We looked at deploying into Croatia directly and setting up an ISB in the vicinity 

of Zagreb. 

We also looked at going into Slavonski Brod, which is just south (north) of the 

Sava River and we looked at Hungary. 

I’m looking now at the CG Update for 18 October on my computer. On Monday, 

16 October, we worked out tasks and responsibilities, in particular, the role of Task 

Force Lion. On Tuesday, 17 October, we considered the force structure associated 

with TF Eagle’s execution. We also looked at the force structure that would be 

required to set up an initial staging base and the force structure required for a 

crossing of the Sava River. On Tuesday, we also looked at the execution timeline. 

How much time would it take to set up the transportation system? How much time 

would it take to set up the intermediate staging base, wherever it was located and 

how much time would it take to deploy the force to the AOR and then move the 

force into the AOR? 

So there were really four major stages to the timeline, even before the force 

began to move and then on Wednesday, we began to look at how we were going 

to do that -- the lines of operation, the deployment timeline itself, and the logistics 

requirements. It turns out that our assessment of the geographic orientation of the 

ISB, wherever it would be located, was the critical decision from which everything 

flowed. General Abrams’ primary goal was force protection. In order to ensure that 

we were given the latitude to execute the operation properly from the standpoint of 
187

the US National Command Authority, he knew that we could not take unacceptable 

losses. In that case, we would be so constrained in our execution that the actual 

mission accomplishment would be at risk. 

So taking force protection into account and taking into account the requirement 

to execute as we were sitting there on the 18th and 19th of October, thinking we 

might be in the execution window within as little as three or four weeks and given 

the requirement rapidly to establish an ISB, without being able to spend a lot of 

time developing that ISB, so that we could get forces to the Sava and begin river 

crossing operations, we very quickly came to the opinion in the planning group that 

the only solution that was workable, the only course of action that was feasible, 

was to go to Hungary. 

The reason that this was so rapidly evident to everyone is clear. Serbia had 

some major advantages from a strategic level. The movement of the US force 

into Serbia would clearly show that we were not biased toward the Moslem or 

Croatian sides. It might even show that we were biased toward the Bosnian Serb 

side which, considering earlier US and NATO actions, would probably be a very 

good thing to do, strategically. However, from the standpoint of developing an 

infrastructure in Serbia, in what we thought would be a very unstable environment 

during the first couple of months of the deployment. In order to meet the IFOR 

requirement, serious concerns about force protection came to the fore. If the peace 

treaty was signed but the peace implementation failed, the presence in Serbia of 

some four or five thousand US troops, which involved very few combat troops, 

could have presented an unacceptable level of force protection risk. 

Similar thoughts occurred with Croatia. Occupying an ISB in the vicinity of the 

Croatian capital was determined to be logistically unfeasible because Zagreb was 

already being used in the plan by the AFSOUTH commander for support. It was 

already being used in actuality by UNPROFOR and others in order to be able to 

support activities in the AOR. We probably would have overwhelmed the capacity 

of Croatia to support from the city of Zagreb. 

We were also concerned with showing partiality toward Croatia and we were 

concerned that, once in Zagreb, we would still have to go further to deploy the 

force into the AOR. There was really no reason to pick Zagreb -- no driving 

reason -- so we did not. Even if we had established in Serbia and had decided 

that the force protection issues were overwhelmed by the strategic requirement to 

try to bring the Serbs in and show that we were not biased against them and had 

established an ISB in the vicinity of Belgrade, we could not have gotten to where 

we needed to go. There is one route from Belgrade into the Tuzla area. It crosses 

the Drina River, where the bridges are up and operational. However, although you 

can get by road to Tuzla from Belgrade, the condition of the road is poor. More 

importantly, force protection again raised its head. That road from Belgrade to 
188

Tuzla, along the Drina River, parallels the Drina River for about 30 kilometers. 

That 30 kilometer stretch is well within mortar range of the Bosnia Serb positions 

in that vicinity. 

So we looked at that and concluded that there was a real logistical plus if we 

could get the railroad between Belgrade and Tuzla working. However, there were 

some numerous kilometers of track in Bosnia-Herzegovina that had been pulled 

up or had never been laid in the first place. So the railroad was not operational, 

although it could be made operational eventually. If the peace accord worked and 

the IFOR got full movement capability throughout the AOR, then it didn’t matter 

how we got into the AOR. So again force protection came up. You could go on 

a road with good bridges but that road was not in good condition and crossed or 

paralleled confrontation lines for an extended distance. It was also a rather longer 

route than the routes in to Bosnia from Croatia or from Hungary. 

The second alternative in Croatia was to occupy an intermediate staging base 

in the vicinity of Slavonski Brod. There were disadvantages to that from the 

standpoint of the ISB, which would receive the full force, prep that force for 

deployment overland, and then monitor the execution of the road march into the 

AOR. Slavonski Brod is a small city and has a very limited railroad network. 

It has been shelled in the recent past; in October of the year before by Bosnian 

Serbs and the entire city of Slavonski Brod is within mortar range of the Bosnian 

Serb positions. If we were to drop 3,500 or 4,000 CSS personnel into that town, 

it would be difficult to get them there in the first place. It would then be difficult 

for them to do the mission of downloading trains. It would be difficult for them 

to maintain their force protection standards. In addition, there was no airfield that 

was considered to be usable within the reach of Slavonski Brod. 

All of the negatives made Slavonski Brod probably the worst of the choices. 

Slavonski Brod also had another problem. If we put a permanent facility there, 

then if Sector East, that part of Croatia which borders on Serbia was attacked by 

the Croatian Army or if the Bosnian Serbs in Sector East attacked the Croatians 

and a war began over Sector East, then the force in Slavonski Brod would be 

involved in that war. Then we would have violated one of the things that we were 

not supposed to do, which was get involved in a larger war. 

That brings us to Hungary. Hungary is not directly involved in the conflict in 

Bosnia-Herzegovina. Therefore, our presence in Hungary would be considered 

by all three of the factions to be a neutral presence. We would not be showing 

bias toward any of the three because we would be in a fourth country. Hungary 

was willing, apparently, to allow us to enter into a permanent, in terms of a year, 

occupation of a portion of Hungary in order to provide an intermediate staging 

base. Hungary had more robust rail and road networks than Serbia and Croatia. 
189

Serbia also had available some disused Warsaw Pact military airfields which would 

be available for C-130 movement, at least, if not larger aircraft. There was also the 

possibility there of using ranges to maintain the training of our forces. 

We were considering training the force as it moved in there; if things slowed 

down and we had time, we could maintain the training readiness of the force while 

it was at the ISB. They also had several Warsaw Pact facilities that we thought we 

could move into and occupy as an ISB site after making some renovations. Most 

importantly, from the standpoint of the planners, was the fact that Hungary gave us 

operational flexibility. Until we committed a force into Croatia, to go to the AOR 

and cross the Sava River, we had total reversibility. No force would be in danger. 

No force would have any force protection concerns above and beyond normal 

force protection in a peacetime environment. If the peace accord was signed but 

not implemented, then US troops would not be at risk. What we could offer the 

National Command Authority by using Hungary was this: if we were given the 

authority to deploy early, we could offer movement into an ISB, establishment of 

an ISB, and prepositioning of the Sava River crossing force, which was probably 

going to be the lead brigade, reinforced. 

We could move them into the ISB and get them trained and equipped to standard. 

Then, whenever the peace agreement was signed, we could react very quickly 

and move a force down to the Sava to begin the river crossing operation. It 

would allow us to not have to establish a permanent facility in Croatia, because 

the Hungary approach was close enough to Bosnia-Herzegovina not to require it. 

Thus if Sector East erupted, although it would present the problem of having our 

base of operations separated from the force that was actually in the Tuzla AOR, 

we would not have a force that was physically in danger of being overrun or held 

hostage by either the Croatians or the Serbs. In addition, it gave us a place where 

we could base a strike force out of harm’s way, but close enough by aviation flight 

distance to still be effective as a reaction force for General Nash, for TF Eagle. 

So Hungary had all of the advantages and few of the disadvantages. The HungaryTaszar approach was the one we briefed to General Abrams and Colonel Casey as 

the best and most likely course of action to choose. General Abrams chose it as 

the course of action for the deployment. General Wright, General Abrams, and 

General Crouch then began development of an OPLAN that accounted for that. 

The OPLAN itself was then developed over the next two weeks with a set of 

coordination meetings between elements of the planning group and 21st TAACOM. 

We began to send reconnaissance teams out. On 5 November, I briefed General 

Crouch on the campaign plan over at the war room over at USAREUR. He approved 

the campaign plan as a basis for further planning and as the basis for execution, 

should (it) be authorized to execute. On 7 November, Colonel Casey presented 
190

the same briefing to the Secretary of Defense during his visit to Hohenfels. On 

9 November, my wife was diagnosed with a brain tumor and I dropped out of 

the planning process for about two months, until she had an operation and is 

now recovered from the operation. So I can trace the development of the plan, 

I can trace how the planning conference went, I can discuss the decision support 

template and the timeline as we knew it up to 9 November, but I was not involved 

from 9 November (1995) to the first of January (1996). 

Q. Can you comment on the reorganization of the Corps headquarters for this 

operation? 

A. That was probably in General Abrams’ mind but he had not mentioned it yet. 

On the morning of 6 November, General Abrams had an impromptu meeting in 

his office with Colonel Bryan, Colonel Casey, Ms. Anderson, and me. It was in 

preparation for the Secretary of Defense’s meeting. The CG met with the same 

group on 8 November, after the SECDEF visit and said that we were probably going 

to execute but that the execution probably wouldn’t come until December. On the 

morning of the 8th, the CG said he thought we had a little bit of time but didn’t 

want to lose our momentum. He wanted us to think about the things that we hadn’t 

done, that we could take advantage of this additional two weeks to do -- some of 

the longer term planning that we needed to do, and the longer lead time projects, 

such as ISB construction, using contracts. I think, at that time, he was starting to 

think in terms of how he was going to organize the stay-behind force, Task Force 

Victory. In terms of the organization of USAREUR (Forward) headquarters that 

had begun at the end of September -- that concept began to be talked about. Major 

Ebener, who is currently down in Hungary, was the lead planner for that piece, 

although I had had a couple of conversations with General Abrams. 

In particular at Grafenwoehr, we had a discussion in which he asked me what 

I thought that the role of the headquarters. I told him that I saw it as threefold: 

first was to be the oversight for the deployment, second was to be the oversight 

for the Title 10 responsibilities for force protection, and third was to be prepared 

to become an operational headquarters for in extremis operations, either for a 

withdrawal, or a reinforcement, or additional operations. I think he agreed.

Notes

1. Lieutenant Colonel Al Bryant, at that time Chief of Plans, ACofS, G3, V Corps.

2. General William W. Crouch, Commander in Chief, US Army, Europe, and Seventh 

Army.

3. Major General Jack P. Nix, Jr., Commanding General, US Southern European TF.

4. Brigadier General George Casey, Chief of Staff, V Corps.

5. Jane Anderson, Political Advisor, V Corps.

6. Major General James M. Wright, Commanding General, 21st TAACOM.
191

Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Manuel J. F. Hernandez, Chief, 

Current Operations, Assistant Chief of Staff, G3, V Corps,

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Major Richard Thurston, 90th Military History Detachment, 

22 February 1996, at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, Germany

Q. Sir, what is your position with respect to Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR? 

A. I am Chief of Current Operations for V Corps G3 (operations). During 

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, I was also the Crisis Action Team OIC (officerin-charge). 

Q. Would you outline the organization and operations of the CAT for this operation? 

A. The CAT is the crisis action team or crisis action center, for the Corps. As 

a matter of fact, we are right now going through a revision of our CAT SOP 

(standing operating procedures) but the intent of the CAT is to provide a command 

and control center for the CG (commanding general) and the Chief of Staff, who 

is overall responsible for the CAT, for V Corps forces involved in any type of 

significant operation or crisis. For the sake of JOINT ENDEAVOR, the CAT 

was formed to C2 (command and control) and monitor/supervise planning for the 

deployment of forces in support of that operation. 

Q. Recently, the CAT was reduced in size. Why was that? 

A. Primarily, because the mission, as it was initiated -- that being the deployment of the 

forces -- was essentially completed. We have now moved into the sustainment phase 

of the operation from the Central Region and the Corps CAT was no longer required on 

a daily basis. This sustainment involves individual replacement flow, augmentees, 

and reserve component and active component units coming from the States. 

When we discuss the CAT, I am referring only to the one here at Corps headquarters. 

There is the portion of Corps forward that helps to make up the USAREUR (US 

Army-Europe) (Forward) command post. At least 50 percent or better is made up 

of V Corps staff personnel. The Corps main command post was what the CAT 

represented here in Heidelberg (Germany). Again, it was headed by the Chief of 

Staff. Task Force Victory was established -- I don’t recall the date, but a little bit after 

the operation began -- to control the non-deploying units and rear detachments of 

the deployed forces, less 3d Infantry Division. That was established in Wiesbaden 

(Germany) under the leadership of Major General Yates. 

One of their primary missions is the RSOI (reception, staging, onward movement 

and integration) of the AC/RC (active/reserve) units coming from the United States 

and also to work the individual replacement flow in coordination with USAREUR 

and the G1/AG (personnel) folks at Corps. The other headquarters that was the 
192

key player was the 1st Armored Division deployment operations cell or division 

operations cell (DOC), which was established at Bad Kreuznach (Germany) but 

that was only up, and in full force, during the deployment. They still have a DOC 

set up but it is not working deployment. They are a sub-element now of Task Force 

Victory as a rear detachment. They are still keeping in the loop with their forces 

down range, of course, but 1st AD rear now falls under TF (Task Force) Victory. 

The other elements are the command posts of the TF Eagle forces down range. 

Once the main body deployed, they closed up shop here and moved down to Camp 

Harmon in Bosnia. The point is that each of these headquarters, at one time or 

another, some on a continuing basis, operate a CAT or something that looks like a 

CAT. It is a command and control element for the commander. 

Q. What was your first involvement with this operation? 

A. My first involvement began during Exercise MOUNTAIN EAGLE, the 

exercise that, in some respects, validated Task Force Eagle’s role in this operation. 

That seems like forever ago but was back in October and November of 1995. We 

finished up Exercise MOUNTAIN SHIELD, which had been a previous mission 

with SETAF (Southern European Task Force). Because it became a larger mission 

and the role of the Corps and Task Force Eagle became larger with the expanded 

concept for a deployment to Bosnia, we entered into Exercise MOUNTAIN 

EAGLE. My number one function was to take the input from Corps staff, from the 

21st TAACOM (Theater Army Area Command), some from USAREUR, and put it 

all together into a deployment plan for what was then called OPLAN 40104X, and 

which later became OPLAN 40105. Later, it evolved into Supplementary Plan B 

for the USAREUR Campaign Plan for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. 

The deployment plan itself mirrored what 21st TAACOM had developed as its 

movement plan for the operation. I think that one of the bigger pieces of it was the 

one that covered the concept of the operation. We worked with the TAACOM and 

COSCOM (Corps Support Command) folks on figuring out how to get the troops 

deployed. The other annexes were pretty close to (more or less mirrored) those in 

the USAREUR Campaign Plan and the V Corps was a big player in developing. 

When we returned from Grafenwoehr, we continued working the completion of 

the USAREUR Campaign Plan, the deployment plan, and started putting personnel 

up in the CAT. Once the CAT was activated, my role became that of overall CAT 

OIC. As the CAT evolved, we later formed a deployment cell that was headed 

by one of the lieutenant colonels that we had doing shift work. I became the day 

shift OIC. The third lieutenant colonel became the night shift OIC. I spent the 

better part of my days handling those duties, monitoring the activities that were 

going on in the CAT, and coordinating with the USAREUR, 21st TAACOM, and 

USAREUR (Forward), once it was established in Hungary, acting as the Corps G3 

POC (Point of Contact) for the Chief of Staff in the execution of the mission. 
193

Q. What were the major issues that arose during the exercises? 

A. In all honesty, I was not involved directly with MOUNTAIN EAGLE. I

spent some time, I walked around, I saw the operations within the forward CP 

(command post), which began as the Corps forward CP and then played a role 

as the Headquarters, ARRC (Allied Rapid Reaction Corps), for a while in a dual 

role. I was not fully an active member there. Personnel who normally work for 

me in the G3 Ops section manned a current ops cell within that headquarters but 

oversight for them in the forward CP was somebody else’s job. I did a little bit 

of work during the exercises that were taking place, that our G3 Exercise Branch 

ran but again, my main function during MOUNTAIN EAGLE was working on the 

deployment plan and coordinating with the TAACOM folks to make sure that we 

were all in synch with the plan, taskings, and requirements that needed to be met 

in order to get the force deployed later on. 

Q. Did you look at lessons learned from other operations or were there other 

things such as that which you considered as you developed the deployment plan? 

A. In the Army, one of the great things is that we are able to go back to other 

documents. Because I had also worked on the deployment planning for Task Force 

Lion’s operation, we basically took that document and expanded it. We took it 

from being a brigade (plus) deployment to a division (plus) deployment. I took 

an existing document that we had worked quite a bit on and had a couple of good 

sessions with the COSCOM, which was the other lead agency at that time for Task 

Force Lion’s mission and then made it the base document for the deployment plan 

for JOINT ENDEAVOR. In a sense, the job was made that much easier by having 

a document already on the street that we just had to do some major revisions to. It 

wasn’t as painful as it could have been if we had been obliged to start from scratch. 

What I have learned from that is, that same document will also be the base 

document we use to develop, or rewrite, the Corps deployment SOP. Essentially, 

all the things that are done in there are the same for any operation. It is just a matter 

of scale. I would say that was the big lesson we learned from this -- we were able 

to use an existing document. I had not been involved with any actual deployment. 

A year and a half ago when I got to Corps, I was a CAT shift OIC for the operations 

in Rwanda.1

 There were some lessons learned in the back of mind, as far as our 

internal administration and what we did on a daily basis went but for the most 

part, I think what we did is that we used a document as opposed to written lessons 

learned that we had pulled from somewhere else. The other piece of that is that we 

were in a new building where the whole set up was different. The ability to have 

the same manning requirements was different. How we operated was, therefore, 

somewhat different just because of the setting we were in. We expanded our 

administrative and communication capabilities here quite a bit during the Rwanda 

operation. We’ve improved quite a bit during the last year and a half. 
194

Q. What is the CAT involvement now that we are in the sustainment phase of 

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR?

A. I don’t want to say that it’s minimal but it is far reduced. The CAT is now 

manned by one operations officer during the day, an officer from G3 Ops. We have 

a field officer of the day after duty hours and on weekends. We do not have any 

staffing from any of the other sections. They are on call and their principals are on 

call if there is an issue that arises to require them. Now, the field officer of the day 

attends the USAREUR morning and evening updates, briefs the G3 and Chief of 

Staff, or provides input to the Chief of Staff Daily Update Book in the morning. He 

provides feedback to the staff via a shift report or through the G3 for any issues that 

need to be worked. We also attend the daily and weekend updates that USAREUR 

(Forward) conducts. Any issues that come out of that video teleconference (VTC) 

meeting, the staff is normally present for. But the FOD (field grade officer of the 

day) or the G3 Ops person is then responsible for farming out the issue to the staff 

sections so they can continue to work it. Then we feed the responses back through 

the normal chain, G3 to Chief of Staff, and then back to USAREUR, if necessary, 

or to the two major subordinate commands that are currently working under us. 

Then we give feedback to USAREUR (Forward). So our participation is far 

reduced but we stay in the loop. Where we had a deployment cell of three or four 

guys on each shift before, I now have just my deployments officer monitoring 

significant events or significant deployments that have to take place. He, in 

conjunction with the person on duty day or night, works those issues. USAREUR 

and 21st TAACOM and Task Force Victory are the big players right now with 

regard to the movement of personnel and equipment. With some exceptions, we 

are more in the assistance mode than actual execution. 

Q. What about the future for CAT operations as we get to redeployment? 

A. The meetings are slowly starting to get planned. I think one of the first is 

coming up around the first of March. We are trying to push for the redeployment 

planning and the input to the JOPES (Joint Operation Planning and Execution 

System) to be down range. That’s where it needs to be because that’s where all the 

players are and where the units are. Thus our perspective is that down range is the 

best place for the redeployment cell to be and the best place for all the inputs to be 

made into JOPES, headed up by the USAREUR folks. That’s all still in the works. 

The role of the Corps, I think, will be staying in the loop to know who is moving 

back and when, and assisting Task Force Victory, which will be the main player in 

the reception and return to the parent units back here in Germany of the deployed 

forces. TF Victory will be the executor of Corps redeployment plans. The CAT 

will monitor all the movement. They will make sure we get the updated ULNs 

(unit line number), the updated JOPES sheets, the TPFDD (Time Phased Force and 

Deployment Data), and that we are aware of all the flights, trains, whatever, that 
195

are coming in. What we will do is similar, I think, to what USAREUR (Forward) 

was doing when they were briefing units coming into theater. 

As the units are coming in, the CAT will obviously be reactivated. I would 

expect not any sooner than two months before the first unit redeploys. Elements 

of the CAT, such as the Ops folks and the redeployment cell, will certainly be 

very busy the month or so prior to that first unit redeploying, to make sure that 

we have all the data input and the tracking ability in place upstairs to monitor the 

units coming in. We will be in a supporting and monitoring role, rather than inputting data and assisting units now. That should be done down range. That may 

change as guidance changes and as the mission starts getting executed. We may be 

required to send some folks down there to participate or to assist the redeployment 

cell but that remains to be seen. 

Q. What problems in deployment did the CAT observe? 

A. I think you already have a copy of our first lessons learned summary and we 

are working now on a deployment SOP that will incorporate all those lessons. 

I think we found at the beginning, one of the big players in our interface with 

USAREUR, 21st TAACOM, and TF Eagle on the requirements for movement 

of personnel or equipment, and the planning for that, and having a center point, 

became the USAREUR Joint Movements Board, which implemented the CINC’s 

and the CG’s priorities for movement and scheduling units. We didn’t have that at 

the beginning. That was a USAREUR lead but we had a big hand in recommending 

that such an organization be created. At about the same time, we initiated the 

deployment cell within the CAT. When we began CAT operations, we had just the 

normal staff sections operating there. We found that, because the CAT is normally 

designed to deal with the current operation, 48 to 72 hours out, it does not really 

have the capability for long range planning. It can do it but it is painful, given the 

environment up there in the CAT, the experience levels of the personnel, and the 

amount (number) of things that are going on at a given moment, vice the things 

that need to occur a week from now.

So we found that we needed an additional cell to do just the planning for 

movement, be the interface with the USAREUR Joint Movements Board, and to 

do the actual lug work to ensure the JOPES input and establish the TPFDD for five 

to seven days out. The Chief of Staff directed that we form the deployment cell 

and we took the lieutenant colonel out of the Corps Fire Support Element,2

 one of 

the shift leaders that I mentioned, gave him a couple of officers and NCOs for each 

of the shifts, using deployment and planning personnel both. It was a big money 

saver. It really made life a lot easier because the CAT could then focus on things 

that were going on at any given moment or focus on some crisis or incident that 

occurred down range or in theater. In the meanwhile, the deployment cell could 

focus on making sure that the had missions being laid on for three, four, five, six 
196

days out, in conjunction with the USAREUR Joint Movements Board, that was 

one of the biggest things that we fixed. 

The rest of the operation, there were a lot of admin(istrative) things that we 

started working on in terms of our ability to track the actual deployment both within 

the deployment cell and within the CAT. We worked on the tracking mechanisms 

and the way we presented information back to the Chief of Staff. Those were 

internal things that I think helped out the process of what we did upstairs. Beyond 

the deployment cell, there were no other major changes in the organization that we 

made in order to facilitate what was going on. I don’t think anything else really 

needed to be done. 

Q. In your view, was the TPFDD well coordinated? 

A. In the beginning, it was not. As I mentioned, that’s why the deployment cell 

came to be. Once that was formed and after the first couple of days of getting the 

data painfully squared away and getting the right people involved from Corps, the 

task force, USAREUR, and TAACOM and given that there are always those last 

minute changes made by the command to implement changed priorities -- units 

that have to be input to meet mission requirements -- the actual development of the 

deployment cell procedures was what made life a lot easier. 

Q. Did you have specific guidance on CAT operations? 

A. Well, we get a lot of guidance. First was the deployment cell. We have talked 

enough about that but it was a major item when we started working our daily 

updates and we did that fairly soon after the CAT was formed. The Chief of Staff 

gave us guidance on how he wanted that -- based on what the CINC or the CG 

forward provided him during their off- line discussions or during the normal VTC 

updates from USAREUR (Forward). The Chief provided his CCIR (Commander’s 

Critical Information Requirements) or “Top 10.” Another thing we had was the 

“war stoppers.” All of those were based on mission requirements and they were 

what guided the CAT in focusing our efforts or our attention on key elements, key 

units, key equipment that needed to get down range. 

We addressed those issues every day and every night. They were always in the 

forefront. As in all things, there were some shortfalls. Some things were war 

stoppers that took us two, three, four weeks to resolve but they were at least items 

that we addressed regularly to make sure that we didn’t lose sight them. Everything 

else would come into place but he had certain priorities and the CG had certain 

priorities. That was really how they provided the staff with the guidance on how 

we needed to focus our efforts. 
197

Q. Do you recall any particular “war stoppers” that they emphasized? 

A. Yes! There were things like AN/TSQ-36 and AN/TSQ-37 radars. When we 

started providing radar support to down range, from the very beginning, that was a 

hot one and we got some attention a few times for failing to pass some info. That’s 

part of the process. I think it was just an essential item. It was key not just for force 

protection but also because it was political. Even now, it remains important. There 

are change-over AC/RC units coming in to replace the radar systems down range. 

That remains a war stopper/CCIR for both the Chief and the CG. Any time we get 

any information on that subject, whether it is really good or really bad, it becomes 

an item we contact the Chief on right away. 

Another biggie was clam shells, which the G4 (logistics) folks worked on 

continually. It still is an item of interest. We’ve got everything down there, I think, 

that we needed but we continue to keep that as a high priority item for repairs and 

the related equipment. Frustrated cargo is another one that we tracked every single 

day. Floodlights -- another G4 item that was tracked every single day. I think we 

still have some deficiencies there but we have close to exhausted, if not exhausted, 

everything we have in the region it seems. We have really pushed that one hard. 

Those were three actual war stoppers that stayed on the charts close to the whole 

time. 

CCIR changed. Every day, at least half of them were new but that was just 

because of the changing situation. The Sava River crossing -- we realized we 

didn’t want to focus on a particular date, as opposed to the event itself. That was 

a CCIR for a long time. The force cap has always been a CCIR, to make sure we 

don’t bust that. Getting the 28th FSE (Fire Support Element), here recently, has 

been a big issue for a couple of weeks. There are some that stick in your mind that 

continue to haunt you even after they are accomplished. 

Q. What other problems hang on? 

A. Well, in terms of deployment, we are still struggling with some of these issues. 

Over the course of the deployment, we probably have had some 20 or 30 different 

AC/RC units that were identified as possible. My most frustrating piece of that 

whole thing was the inability to get early identification of when the unit was 

needed down range. There are still some units, 1 think, that we have listed that 

we are not 100 percent sure will be needed down range. For whatever reasons, 

we lack information on when those units will be needed -- maybe because it’s 

no longer certain that they will be needed. That RDD (Required Delivery Date) 

drives the issue of when we want to get them in country and drives the movement 

requirements, the training requirements, and so on. That was a problem off and 

on, and we need to do better at identifying from the beginning what we really need 
198

and then identifying when we really need it down range even if it’s just a planning 

figure that you can later modify because that really drives quite a bit else. 

The other piece of that was Task Force Victory. They were responsible for 

reception of a unit from the States, identifying a sponsor, getting it through 

training, and then getting it moved forward. TF Victory was given the mission, 

and it took them a few days to get their feet on the ground, because really, they 

just aren’t staffed for being a division headquarters -- with all the rear detachments 

they’ve got. I think they’ve done a terrific job in fighting through all those internal 

difficulties with manning and a new mission, something they hadn’t done in the 

past, and in starting to work internal systems to get units through that whole process. 

They worked closely with USAREUR and with our G3 Training in certain arenas 

to get all into place. Again, the issue there is to know when we need a unit down 

range and then getting a POC in the States to be able to work all the pieces to make 

that happen. 

Some of this went really well. I have to commend some of our staff sections. 

Our G5 (Civil Affairs) folks were really super in coordinating with the civil affairs 

people coming from the States. They had, probably, more times than not, the best 

handle on their folks. They knew when they were coming, they knew how many, 

they knew where they were at a given moment - 99 percent of the time - it seemed. 

Our G2 folks usually knew which intelligence folks were coming. That helps a 

lot, when the staff sections are players because that lifts some of the burden off of 

the CAT itself as a cell and it also assists TF Victory or the RSOI unit, a great deal. 

They have to do that, really. Everybody has to be a participant. I think our staff 

pulled together in most cases on that. 

Q. Would you recapitulate the changes in CAT organization? 

A. We went from no cell to a couple of folks up there as we started getting 

it organized, to a full CAT with eight to 10 different staff sections represented. 

Then we split off some of the operators and transportation folks and made the 

deployment cell. We worked that through the last week of the deployment and 

then transitioned back to just the CAT proper, with the deployment cell personnel 

being reintegrated into their staff sections. We went from there to deleting some 

of the LNO (Liaison Officer) positions that we had, at the different sites, and up in 

the CAT, to our current mode of operation. That is, the Ops person during the day, 

the FOD at night and on weekends, and no other staff representation except during 

the daily updates from USAREUR (Forward). 

(As to) issues during sustainment...we continue to be a big player there because 

every morning we attend the VTC update. I have an operator there, or I attend, or 

the G3 XO (Executive Officer) goes in, and the staff personnel are there. We attend 

both the USAREUR (Forward) updates and the USAREUR (Main) shift changes 
199

in the morning and evening. From those come issues that require some assistance 

from the Corps staff or from Task Force Victory. We continue to be monitoring 

our C2 element, depending on what the actual issue is. The deployments person 

upstairs is still involved in the Joint Movement Board meetings. Those continue. 

They are working issues that involve flights or transportation for people or 

equipment that need to get down range. It just isn’t as heavy now as it was during 

the middle of the deployment. 

Q. Would you talk about the issuing of frag(mentary) orders? 

A. Fragos, of course, make life easier most of the time. I have a tasking section 

that monitors 99 percent, if not all, of the taskings that go out of the Corps. When 

we made the OPLAN an OPORD, when we took the USAREUR Campaign 

Plan and made that the V Corps Operations Order, we issued the first order as 

a message and then all subsequent traffic requirements came out as ““fragos”” 

to that order. They ranged from just plain information messages, to guidance 

on train safety and force protection issues, to actual mission requirements in the 

sense of tasking units back here to support missions down range. We had a little 

difficulty at the beginning because we were issuing Fragos off of the V Corps 

order. The USAREUR (Forward) began issuing “fragos” off of the USAREUR 

Campaign Plan. There was some concern that we were doing the same thing from 

two different locations. 

We put that to rest as quickly as we could, as far as understanding that there 

were two sets of “fragos” but we were issuing them as V Corps “fragos” and not 

USAREUR “fragos”. Our staff was down range and issuing the same, or similar, 

“fragos” from Taszar (Hungary) but they were issuing them off of the USAREUR 

order. So they were similar but in fact different. It took folks a couple of “fragos” 

to understand that. Once that was done, the other thing that we had to fix was 

that we were issuing “fragos” from the execute order for the mission, from the 

deployment order for the mission, and from the order for the mission. Somewhere 

within the first five “fragos”, we issued one that stated that all subsequent V Corps 

“fragos” would be to OPORD 40105 and nothing else. Anything that had to do 

with deployment, came from the OPORD but made reference to the deployment 

order, which at that time was Supplementary Plan B to the OPORD. We issued 

quite a few “fragos”. I think that 90 to 95 percent of them were good and were 

needed. There were probably a quarter of those that were repetitious because we 

issued a daily, or almost daily, frago on call forward for units to hit the APOD 

(aerial ports of departure) and the railheads. 

Those were just the same “fragos” done over and over, with new units identified 

for movement. That was a frago that we began, probably not until a couple of weeks 

after the operation began and also was in conjunction with the Joint Movement 

Board’s meetings that were taking place. That was one of the better ones that we 
200

established because it gave the hard copy requirements to the units, as to who was 

supposed to be moving when and where. It gave folks a heads up on when they 

were supposed to move, or a 2 to 4 day or 1 to 2 day projection, as opposed to not 

knowing at all and then getting a “Hey you!” call in the middle of the night. That 

was a good system that we finally put together. 

Most of the other “fragos” involved tasking requirements. For the majority 

of them, we had USAREUR taskers or we had verbal and/or written guidance 

from USAREUR (Forward) or the Chief of Staff here to execute. I think one of 

the difficulties we had to work through was getting the system working so that a 

requirement that came from down range went from the USAREUR (Forward) to 

the USAREUR (Main) and then to V Corps, as opposed to a V Corps person filling 

a USAREUR (Forward) position calling back to his counterpart or a member of his 

section back on the Corps staff and saying he needed something. That took a few 

days but in order to get the right information flow established through the chain of 

command, we had to push that one so that everybody understood that there were 

not two V Corps elements. We were one V Corps element here in Heidelberg and 

a USAREUR (Forward) that worked for those guys across the street. Properly, the 

message flow had to go through USAREUR (Main). Also, we had to work the 

same thing with Task Force Eagle. 

A couple of times we had to fix “fragos”, or rewrite them, because we were 

potentially making the mistake of tasking TF Eagle, once they were down range. 

Actually, we should not have been doing that. We had to make sure that the 

“fragos” that were in support of or that had requirements for TF Eagle, actually 

went back the same chain -- through USAREUR (Main) to USAREUR (Forward) 

then to the task force or from USAREUR (Main) to USEUCOM and then to the 

ARRC and to TF Eagle. Once they were down range, those 1st Armored Division 

elements were no longer a V Corps asset but a NATO, an ARRC asset and we had 

to remember that. That took a little doing but everybody had to understand that. 

Q. How does Lieutenant General Abrams exercise command of the Corps? 

A. He is still the CG and has his Chief of Staff running the operation here in 

Heidelberg. USAREUR (Forward) is under the Deputy CINCUSAREUR, General 

Abrams. He is responsible for the National Support Element (NSE), which had its 

own commander, a two-star billet. General Abrams is the CINC’s representative 

and essentially answers directly to the CINCUSAREUR. 

The V Corps (Main) is at Heidelberg. What we might otherwise have called 

the Corps Rear CP is Task Force Victory, in Wiesbaden, made up of all V Corps 

non-deploying units and rear detachments except for 3d Infantry Division and 

the Corps Special Troops Battalion, which is the Corps staff, essentially. Task 

Force Victory is led by a two star general who is the Corps Deputy CG, and the 
201

primary staff comes out of a combination of V Corps Artillery and 3d COSCOM. 

USAREUR (Main) is here in Heidelberg. Task Force Eagle, consisting of much of 

1st Armored Division and parts of numerous Corps major subordinate commands, 

is in the AO (area of operations). TF Victory is treated as a division for reporting 

purposes. Normally, we have the two divisions and all the separate brigades. We 

have taken all the separates that remain, all the rear detachments that remain, and 

placed them under TF Victory. 

Normally our only two star billets are the commanders of the two divisions. 

My guess, or estimate, is that because TF Victory is comprised of all the rear 

detachments, to include what is left of 1st AD and is commanded by a two star 

general and has the roles and functions, minus some of the maneuver assets of a 

division, and because it is doing as much as a division, in many ways, the decision 

was made to have it report as a division. That’s my best estimate of what the 

thought process might have been. They are functioning pretty close to the role of 

a division. 

TF Victory provides us a daily situation report of what is going on. Some are 

specific to issues currently being worked but it is really not much different from 

what 1st Infantry Division does on a daily basis. We don’t really have reports 

that the MSCs (major subordinate command) send to us just because of JOINT 

ENDEAVOR. They are sending reports because of issues that are being worked or 

because they are required by other out-of-sector missions that are going on. 

Notes

1. Operation SUPPORT HOPE, for which V Corps supplied forces in mid-1994.

2. Lieutenant Colonel David Ifflander, Chief of the V Corps Artillery Fire Support 

Element at V Corps Headquarters.

203

Interview with Lieutenant Colonel James Terrell, Deputy Assistant 

Chief of Staff, G4, V Corps, Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Major Richard Thurston, 90th Military History Detachment, 

30 April 1996, at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, Germany

Q. Tell me about G4 (logistics) initial involvement in planning for Operation 

JOINT ENDEAVOR. 

A. The actual Corps G4 planning started in approximately October 1995. At that 

point, it looked as if the mission was actually going to happen. Based on that, we 

began to do some heavy training exercises for Task Force Eagle in preparation 

for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. Mainly, what happened is that we went to 

Grafenwoehr (Germany) and worked with Task Force Eagle over a two month 

period of intensive training in preparation for a deployment to Bosnia. 

Q. What was some of the Corps Commander’s guidance to the G4 for your 

involvement with training? 

A. Basically, it came from two directions. First of all, we had the functional 

area analysis, where the G4 - Colonel Lichtenberger,1

 and the 21st TAACOM 

Commander - General Wright, together with the commanders for support and the 

Task Force Eagle Commander (General Nash and General Abrams) came together 

and talked about the logistics area subset. We went over areas such as supply 

and transportation, maintenance, medical, and so on. They went into great detail 

on how they saw the total system being supported both during the deployment 

and into the sustainment part of the operation. That was done for a couple of 

reasons. One (reason was) to get the commander’s intent and concept and also to 

tie together the system of providing support to soldiers and organizations within 

the community. This enabled them to get into such areas as ammunition to such 

an extent that they understood the commander’s intent to deploy the force with 

ammunition, so that when Task Force Eagle arrived in the area of operations, it 

would be able to immediately assume the mission. It was also able to clear up 

any discrepancies between the operational plans. One of the hard parts of this total 

operation was that there was a USAREUR (US Army-Europe) plan, there was 

a EUCOM (European Command) plan, there was an AFSOUTH (Allied ForcesSouth) plan, there was a V Corps plan, and there was a Task Force Eagle plan. 

None of these plans were in total sync with each other because they were written 

autonomously. Although people in Europe have been planning for such a mission 

for about four or five years, only the basic concept was looked at, not the details. 

So, the detailed analysis of how to execute only came together at that time. 

The Corps commander intensively managed the training to prepare the troops 

for deployment but unfortunately what happened to the Corps was that there was 

no budget. We went from the concept to the mission to the execution in a very 
204

short time. This did not enable the force to properly prepare to deploy in support 

of the mission. For example, the operation plan called for 15 days of supply of 

packaged POL (petroleum, oil, and lubricants) products. The units went through 

an intensive training phase in Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels and consumed much of 

the packaged POL products. Without a budget and without an execute order for a 

contingency, they were not able to procure more stocks. This made it difficult in 

the deployment because a lot of the items the units needed were not available. I 

think that was part of the catch up that we experienced in the January or February 

period in 1996 in repair parts, POL, authorized stockage lists, and some packaged 

products. 

Q. You spoke earlier about tying together some details of the functional areas. 

Could you recall any areas that you discussed with your staff in the early days?

A. One of the areas was transportation, moving the force. It had to do with how to 

package the force to deploy it down range. The operation was basically a phased 

operation. What we did was initial entry to deploy those forces it took to cross 

the Sava River (Croatia). Was there the right amount of security and cavalry units 

such as Quarter Cav?2

 You wanted to go to the Sava River and then deploy the 

force across the river, to begin to enforce the terms of the treaty. In order to execute 

that, it required the National Support Element (NSE) to be in place in Hungary to 

provide the support and reception capabilities for the force deployment out of the 

Central Region. So, a lot of things, transportation-wise, had to be worked such as 

diplomatic clearances, country clearances, moving ammunition with units on trains, 

and uploading combat vehicles with turret loads. How would the ammunition be 

accounted for during the operation? 

Then, things had to be worked on how to deploy the force from Hungary through 

Croatia to Bosnia with restrictions that became firmer as we went through the 

execution. Basically, no tracked vehicles could move through Croatia. That 

required putting enough assets on the ground to move heavy tracked vehicles from 

Hungary to Croatia and to do the river crossing operation. 

It also required us to have the right mix of forces on the ground to be able to do 

the reception operation. That was handled by the 29th Area Support Group, which 

did Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and Integration (RSOI) of the force. 

This was basically marrying the force up with the equipment so it could execute 

the mission. 

Q. When the plan changed in December (1995), when they had to move up 

everything because they wanted to build the bridge across the Sava early, how 

were you able to support that logistically? 

A. Basically, it made it very difficult because some of the forces began to move 

at different rates and in different orders than had been previously planned. This 
205

caused great problems with moving ammunition with the units. It also caused some 

operational problems, difficulties in getting the force through Croatia to Bosnia. 

Some of the initial forces, not necessarily the bridging forces, had difficulty 

with routing and movement. Simultaneous to moving the force and deploying 

the force, was the housing the force. The infrastructure we found in Croatia was 

lacking, in that the only capabilities were what the troops brought with them. What 

this forced us to do was to move tentage, stoves, fuel, and mess capabilities into 

Croatia in very primitive conditions, in the wintertime to be able to sustain the 

force in pretty harsh conditions prior to doing the actual river crossing. That made 

it very difficult. 

With my experience in dealing with forces, probably a lesson learned in Germany 

is that forces do not have enough CTA (Common Table of Allowances) tentage to 

be able to maintain in a field environment for an extended period of time. This 

is because in Germany, they normally operate in a garrison situation. When they 

go to Grafenwoehr, Grafenwoehr has fixed facilities that the units occupy, except 

for minor command posts and that sort of thing, when they go to ranges to do 

command post exercises. So, being able to go into the field in an environment to 

sustain for an extended period of time with your own tentage capability is lacking. 

In addition, we found that the terrain and soil composition in Croatia, Bosnia, and 

Hungary is such that it is extremely difficult. It is very wet and very muddy. The 

ground floor under IFOR (Implementation Force) and Task Force Eagle in many 

areas was bottomless. We found that the containment areas where we put the 

troops to stage them with their equipment turned into a complete quagmire. The 

road networks were not there. The gravel was not there to support the movement. 

The heavy wheeled and tracked vehicles had to move in the areas for an extended 

period of time. When we pulled the first troops into Zupanja (Croatia), which is 

at Camp Harmon, to start the bridging operations, until we went to the last bridge 

across the river, I would say ground utilization was in excess of 10 miles of terrain. 

The population was much greater than we anticipated and planned for. Part of the 

reason was that is was very difficult to get the bridging equipment into position to 

prepare to do the mission. This made us have a larger force on the ground. 

Forces deploying into theater went both into Slavonski Brod, Croatia, and 

through Hungary. Initially, we had planned for everything to go through Hungary 

but because of the speed with which we had to deploy forces because it was a split 

operation, we could not do that. We had to deploy a large percentage of forces 

into Slavonski Brod and into Zupanja, rather than just coming in through Hungary. 

The support structure, whether provided by the 21st TAACOM or a unit such as 

the 29th ASG (Army Support Group), turned in to Task Force Eagle supporting 

itself as it deployed. It made it very difficult because all their supplies and 

equipment were uploaded in containers and in their vehicles. 
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The other thing was the requirement to get the combat forces on the 

ground to meet the timelines and to enforce the separation of the forces in the 

Zone of Separation (ZOS). Because the combat service support units had 

been pushed back in the deployment queue, we ended up with our combat 

forces on the ground without the logistics infrastructure to support them. 

We started out with a concept of base camps in Bosnia. Originally, we had planned 

eight or 10 base camps and that eventually ended up becoming 21 or 22 base 

camps. That made it much more difficult because of the amount of infrastructure 

necessary to support that many camps. Instead of having large encampments, we 

had multiple smaller, functional encampments. Regardless of how large or how 

small a camp is, it still needs the same infrastructure. So, water, fuel, latrines, 

showers, dining facilities, housing, utilities, electricity, and heat, are all required, 

and many more functions than what we initially anticipated. 

The rapidity with which we deployed also made it difficult to activate LOGCAP 

(Logistics Civil Augmentation Program), which provided the infrastructure 

support. What that meant is that it forced us to use the Seabees and Air Force Red 

Horse teams and other construction assets to go in and establish the infrastructure 

before we could get the contract in line and, before we could get materials and 

personnel hired and online to provide logistics support. This made it more difficult 

because it put another factor in there that was not planned for which was deploying 

military forces to provide logistical support. It was just another thing that had to be 

added on. In addition, those logistical forces had to have the right tentage, lumber, 

power generation capability, and fuel storage capability to support the force. That 

was something that was not planned for. 

Q. Can you give me an overview of how units handled Class V?

A. I can give you an overview as hearsay and not direct involvement by myself 

before we deployed. When we were at Grafenwoehr, the units calculated their 

basic load. Their basic load came in three pieces. One was the turret load on the 

combat vehicles. The other one was the “To Accompany Troops” (TAT). The third 

was the lift load. Originally, the plan called for two basic loads, one for the unit 

and one as a backup. A lot of that was predicated on not knowing the details and 

what to expect about the threat or not knowing what the response would be when 

the United States and NATO forces entered into Bosnia. Basically, the guidance 

was to be prepared for the worst case. If you prepare for worst case, then you will 

be sure to have enough ammunition. 

The units went to Vilseck Depot in Germany to submit Department of the 

Army DA Forms 581 and sign for their basic loads of ammunition. That was 

containerized in Vilseck. As units deployed out of Central Region, the turret 

loads were transported to the railheads and uploaded into the combat vehicles. 

The ammunition was only originally designed to travel with the unit. However, 
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a lot of the ammunition was moved separately to link up with the unit. As I said 

before, since the units deployed in different orders and into different destinations, 

this caused some real problems. Basically, it forced the 21st TAACOM to take its 

ammunition units into the Intermediate Staging Base or ISB. There, they took 

ammo available; no matter what unit it was designated for, and reissued it to the 

forces going through the ISB and into the AOR (Area of Operations). This caused 

a lot of accountability problems, as you can see, because one unit was signed for 

the ammo but another unit deployed with that ammo into the AOR. Units are still 

working theater-wide reconciliations to resolve the problems. 

In addition, when units started to go to Slavonski Brod, Task Force Eagle did not 

have enough ammunition handling forces on the ground to take care of the ammo 

and assure accountability. Problems were generated there when the units drew 

ammo without proper accountability at those nodes, to deploy into the AOR. 

The lesson learned there is that, if you are going to change the flow of forces into 

the AOR and the units do not move with their ammo, it is imperative that you have 

a lot of procedures in place to ensure accountability of the ammunition. A lot of the 

ammunition people thought that the correct way to do this was for the ammunition 

to flow into the ISB from the Vilseck Depot based on requirements. Accountability 

could then be established at the ISB when the units flowed through and into the 

AOR. The accountability documents would be transferred to Vilseck. I think that, 

if we had done it that way, we would have had a lot better accountability.

Q. Let’s talk about the mixture of the logistical forces. What was your advice to 

the commander on the mixture on the logistical forces down range? 

A. I think you need to speak with other people about this subject but I can tell 

you that this was not a linear battlefield. I could equate our experience in Bosnia 

to our experience in Vietnam, base camps and no front lines. Because of that, 

the logistics infrastructure normally would flow your combat forces into staging 

areas with combat service support units behind them. They would assume the 

FEBA (Forward Edge of the Battle Area) in preparation for their mission to attack 

or defend or whatever. Because of the way this area is designed, one of the Task 

Force Eagle rear areas, basically, is 2/3 of the distance south of the Sava River to 

the furthest deployed force in the AOR. 

So, the logistics units have to move with the combat units across the river to 

ensure route security for the logistical forces as they flow through to their final 

destinations. Basically, the way the battlefield was arranged, was around the 1st 

and 2d BCTs (Brigade Combat Teams). The first units deployed into Tuzla as a 

part of the 3-325 Airborne Infantry, with the Headquarters of Task Force Eagle. 

So, it was a long time from the time that the combat forces began to flow across the 

Sava River to establish a bridgehead until the logistical forces could flow into the 
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AOR. This is because, normally, the combat forces have to go in to ensure security 

of the ZOS. Some of those things were predicated on gates that were established 

by the Dayton Peace Accords. A certain percentage of forces had to be on the 

ground by a certain date. The ZOS had to be secured by a certain date. 

Those were the driving factors in getting the right folks on the ground at the right 

time and not orchestrating the logistical support to the force. That made it difficult. 

In addition, the combat service support forces had to keep everything uploaded on 

the vehicles and the containers until they reached their final destinations, where 

they could finally download and establish the logistics infrastructure. This was 

difficult because they had an air bridge with supplies and equipment coming into 

Hungary and Tuzla in Bosnia. At the same time, we had equipment moving by 

road from the Central Region into Hungary and into Bosnia, once a bridgehead had 

been established. 

Q. Was there a common trend on types of equipment going by a particular mode 

of transportation? 

A. It is kind of interesting because initially, there were no land lines of 

communication to support the forces that were in Bosnia. So, the 3-325 Airborne 

Infantry and other organizations on the ground with Task Force Eagle’s advanced 

headquarters had to be resupplied by air. From that point until the river crossing 

operations happened, everything went by air; communications equipment, medical 

equipment, tentage, rations, water, ammunition, and so on. That is a normal 

procedure for the 3-325, which is an airborne organization but is not normal 

procedure for an armored division. 

Q. What type of aircraft did they use? Did they do any air drops? 

A. It was all airlines. There was no situation where they used air drops. That 

was basically because of the enemy situation. It was much more secure to air land 

supplies and equipment into the Tuzla air base. 

Once the land LOC (Lines of Communication) opened and the bridge went up, 

we began to push units and supplies across. It was difficult to resupply Tuzla 

because at the time, we had a lot of difficulty with the weather in Bosnia, Croatia, 

and Hungary. It was winter and it was difficult to fly fixed wing and rotary wing 

aircraft because of the icing conditions and low visibility. In addition, it was 

difficult to resupply by ground because a lot of times when we could not fly, the 

roads were Red or Black, which meant that you could not move military assets into 

the AOR. Basically, what you could not do is conduct convoys; deploy troops, or 

move supplies; you just had to wait until the conditions changed. Normally, that 

would only be 24 to 72 hours. 
209

Q. I want to return to the subject of air again. Where were the supplies flown into? 

Tuzla? Sarajevo? What kind of airplane did they use? 

A. Supplies and equipment went into Tuzla. They did not have to go into Sarajevo. 

There were some supplies and equipment that went into Sarajevo but very little, 

really. The supplies coming from the States came in through Germany. Sometimes, 

the supplies and equipment were shipped on a C-17, C-5, or C-130, depending 

what the cargo was. We used C-141s, C-130s, and C-17s to resupply into Hungary 

and into Tuzla. I think it was a test of the C-17. The Air Force made the C-17 the 

work horse and used the deployment and support of the force as leverage to argue 

for replacement of the C-5 and C-141 by the C-17. They claimed that the C-17 

could do the job. The Air Force pushed very, very hard and did a very good job. 

Q. Tell the story of how the trains supported the operation logistically. Also 

explain how busses supported the operation

A. The planning movement (time) by rail from Central Region to Hungary was two 

days. Actually, it was normally three or four days and sometimes longer. I would 

say that, during a normal 24 hour period, we would have four or five trains loading in 

the Central Region. Probably, we’d have as many as 12 trains maximum loaded and 

en route to Croatia or Hungary. In a normal day four to six trains would be en route. 

The troops moved by bus to the maximum extent possible. It was much safer and 

more convenient for the troops to move by bus rather than moving on the train. 

The problem with moving on the train is that, if they got hung up at a border, 

things began to back up at the rail head. We would then end up with troops on the 

train someplace. It needed sustainment. Although we deployed troops from the 

Central Region on the trains in three or four days with rations and water we found 

sometimes that was insufficient. 

We have also had the dreaded red rash. I’m sure you have heard about that. That 

was one of the problems we ran into when units that moved POMCUS equipment 

out of Belgium. Engineer units that rode the train to Croatia or actually into 

Hungary, developed a skin rash and we did not know the seriousness of it. That 

popped up about three or four times and we had to quarantine the unit until medical 

operators could determine the source. It was a great fear that we had some sort of 

communicable disease or problem that could infect the whole force. The closeness 

of personnel, the density of people, and the volume of people we were moving 

through to support the operation . . . it was a bit destabilizing for the force.

Also, at the same time, there was a large French rail strike that made it difficult to 

move the oversized equipment because the French deep well rail cars we normally 

use to move expando vans, 109 vans, and large pieces of equipment, were in France 

and could not be used to support the operation. We had to convoy a lot more 
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equipment than we would have planned. Probably, one of the lessons learned is 

that we should have started to convoy equipment earlier. It made it difficult when 

that equipment out in the units went through the RSOI process because equipment 

moved by rail and equipment moved by highway, and maybe not necessarily in 

the same order, to get it into the Intermediate Staging Base. That was a challenge. 

Q. Would you talk a little bit about the movement plans of the units? 

A. Everything is driven by the operational plan. The operational plan goes into 

JOPES (Joint Operation Planning and Execution System) and produces a TPFDD 

(Time Phased Force and Deployment Data) for the deployment flow. The problem 

is that, when we started the deployment, we did not have a TPFDD and we didn’t 

have a deployment flow. We sent units based on missions and the assets that were 

available. That happened from the time that we were notified until when first forces 

flowed into Hungary to establish a support base and then the initial entry forces, to 

include the bridging operations. It made it difficult to know which unit you needed 

first, from where, with what, and to go where. We played a lot of catch up. I 

would say that it caused great difficulty with the first phase of the operation. At the 

point when that started to smooth out because of the operational considerations, 

the commander had to move different forces than had been anticipated in the flow, 

which caused additional difficulties. Every time one of those things happened, it 

caused a backlog in the process and it took some time to start to smooth back out. 

Q. Was certification of hazardous cargo a problem during this operation? 

A. Not to my knowledge. It’s surprising. I think what we ran into is that, because 

it was a humanitarian/peacekeeping operation supported by NATO, a lot of the 

normal requirements which would be normally imposed on the nations, such as 

certification, were not imposed. However, it may be a problem for redeployment 

because I think some of the rules that were not enforced during deployment will be 

enforced during redeployment.

Q. How did the logistical units relate to the multinational forces? Were they 

assigned missions to complement the multinational forces? Or, were you assigned 

the same missions, but in different places in the area of operations? 

A. I would say, for the most part, if you look at how the forces are laid out, each 

nation having a different sector, that it was not a problem. We closely monitored 

situations. For instance, when the Nordic Brigade was deploying through Slavonski 

Brod at the same time as Task Force Eagle, in some cases we had to adjust the 

deployment flow to work that out but it wasn’t a big problem. 

I think the biggest problem with the deployment was with the material handling 

equipment. We had to have the right type of material handling equipment in the 

right places at the right times. It was difficult. The difficulty we experienced was 
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with container handling equipment, mostly forklifts and those sorts of things. We 

had problems both at Tuzla and at the ISB in Hungary, more so at Zupanja and 

Slavonski Brod. 

The maximum number of containers was shipped at one time when the LOC was 

opened and we pretty much had the forces in place. We were trying to move the 

containers for sustainment for repair parts, authorized stockage lists, prescribed 

load lists, and unit equipment. We probably pushed, in a four or five day period, a 

couple hundred thousand gallons of fuel and 200 to 300 containers. That caused 

some major problems and difficulties for Task Force Eagle because of the sheer 

volume we had to push so as to get them into a position where they could maintain 

themselves.

Q. What about maintenance support down range?

A. If you look at the operational readiness (OR ) rates over time, initially what 

happened was that the OR rates were based upon the units coming out of a theater 

environment after heavy training. Units then deployed down to the AOR. There 

was a period of time when there were three or four weeks before the logistics units 

were in place to adequately support the forces. During that time, the readiness 

rates dropped dramatically. We really tried to push specific repair parts. A lot of 

things were managed by 21st TAACOM until the forward support battalions and 

main support battalions could sit down and think twice about the containers and 

get up and running. So, there was a lot of management outside of what would 

normally be provided the division. 

Q. How many maintenance units were down range to support the units? Was there 

one at each of the base camps? 

A. If you are talking about vehicle maintenance capability, you have two FSBs 

(Forward Support Battalions) and a MSB (Maintenance Support Battalion). The 

16th Corps Support Group also has elements. You have the 127th Maintenance 

Support Battalion that is down range. They provide every commodity support 

imaginable but you also have every piece of equipment that you could imagine. 

The hard part probably . . . I have been down range four months and only up here 

for three weeks and I’m just now getting a grasp on the difficulty because of the 

number of units and unit equipment still here in Central Region and not required as 

part of the mission. That has been a very difficult part of the mission, to take care 

and maintain/provide maintenance for equipment that was not deployed. 

In a way, there have been as many innovative things done back here in Central 

Region as are being done in the forward region and down range. It has been very 

difficult, and nothing has stopped. The Macedonia mission3

 is still ongoing and 

there are still units regularly deploying there. We are doing fielding of new combat 
212

systems and aviation systems and force modernization integration. At the same 

time, we are doing a lot of the state-of-the-art issues, such as anti-armor kits and 

outfits and up-armored HMMWVs, heavy HMMWVs, and fragmentation blankets. 

The issue has been made on what is called the RF (radio frequency) technology 

to be able to identify the location and disposition of supplies and equipment. RF 

leads us to the point where -- and this did not come early on; we have gotten 

better as we have gone through the operation -- to the point where we can track 

a container with an RF tag and know when it leaves depot and where it is at any 

given time at any point from depot to its ultimate destination in the AOR. You can 

track it by container number or RF tag number, to a point where we were able to do 

this for specific items that a unit needed, to know where they were, to get detailed 

information, so the unit could find what flight the things they needed came on, 

what truck the equipment came on, when it crossed the Sava River, when it entered 

the 123d MSB container yard. This was some pretty good technology. 

Q. What were the problems or issues involving tire chains and tentage? 

A. Tire chains were a problem. I’ll tell you the basis of that problem. Nobody can 

predict when the road conditions in Germany will require tire chains. As a result 

of that, nobody has tire chains. That was a difficulty, in that we made it one of the 

requirements, the deployment criteria that the units had to fill. So, again, with no 

budget and no ability to requisition ahead of time, it was very difficult for the units 

to get the tire chains that they were short, in the quantities that they needed, by 

type, against the on-hand supply. 

Tentage was a problem. We handled tentage the same way we did blocking and 

bracing. To determine what the overall requirement was, we had that much already 

in the system in play, to provide the required numbers. Some of those things were 

worked through standard supply procedures, where every unit was responsible to 

order its own. We did mass bulk ordering. Task Force Eagle determined the need 

for tire chains, based on total task force requirements and ordered for everyone, 

rather than having each individual organization order for itself. That probably 

was a really smart way of doing those kinds of things. We did that on a lot of 

personal items of equipment: Chap Stick lip balm, foot powder, etc. Task Force 

Eagle would figure out how many troops and they would order in bulk. They did 

that for the spring thaw too, as we get ready for the transition to summer. They did 

a lot of that for supply items such as impregnation kits, insecticides for uniforms, 

mosquito nets and mosquito balms, and those types of items they will need to 

protect the soldiers in the summer and fall. 

Q. Would you talk about cold and hot weather Class II? 

A. We learned a lot of things. One of the problems is that there is no standard 

data base for cold weather equipment within USAREUR. Some communities 
213

have an automated system and others have a manual system. It made it extremely 

difficult for the DCSLOG (Deputy Chief of Staff-Logistics) to know, based on the 

requirements, what its assets were, to be able to equip the force. Secondly, there is 

no standard issue of clothing equipment for USAREUR soldiers. One community, 

or even one commander, might change what he wanted the troops to have. We felt 

that it was one of the things we wanted to generate at the start of this thing. We did 

it by figuring out what we thought every soldier should deploy with. Commanders 

looked at that and made some modifications. Basically, we went to USAREUR 

DCSLOG with a list of what we wanted each soldier supporting this mission to 

deploy with. 

This caused them great problems because, having no standard within USAREUR, 

one soldier would have 2/3 of what was on our lists, others would have 1/2, while 

still others would have 9/10 of it. So, it was very difficult for them to have the 

right amounts of the right types of clothing on hand in the right sizes, at the right 

places, based on the deployment flow of forces from Central Region. It was very, 

very difficult. Some people did some unbelievable jobs in managing that business. 

Even so, we ended up with some soldiers deploying down range without the right 

types of clothing, based on the rapidity with which we had to deploy forces. 

We had a lot of problems with standard Army issue of extreme cold weather 

boots, which is one pair. Everyone knows that soldiers can’t wear just one pair of 

cold weather boots, especially with the environment we were in, with the constant 

mud and water. They just could not wear those boots every day. They needed 

two pairs, because they have to change them as appropriate. That was one of the 

lessons learned from the get-go, that we wanted two pairs of boots. 

The other problem was with sizes. You would be surprised to know that we ended 

up with female soldiers with size four, which was very small. They would have no 

stockages. Or, in some cases, we would have guys with size 15. It would be very 

difficult to get that person two pairs of the winter boots during the deployment. 

We even worked by individual unit, Social Security number, location. We got the 

boots on an airplane, flew them to Hungary, and tracked them by mission number 

to get those boots to the right soldier. So, we did some of the “eaches,” believe it 

or not, all over the playground. With over 20,000 people, in some places we were 

still working out to get one individual the right stuff. 

At this point, we are trying to issue some hot weather gear. The key is to issue in 

time. Because of the OPTEMPO (Operations Tempo) and the environment down 

range, we are trying to give soldiers gratuitous issues that contain underwear, 

tee shirts, and socks. We are experiencing some problems with some soldiers 

who deployed without their issue boots. The only boots they have are the winter 

boots or Mickey Mouse boots, which are not appropriate wear for the summer 

environment. That may create some difficulties, yet to be determined. 
214

Q. What about cold weather sleeping bag issue? Now that we are going into the 

summer months, are warm weather sleeping bags issued? 

A. The standard issue at USAREUR was the cold weather sleeping bag, not the 

extreme cold weather sleeping bag. When we got into the corner, we made the 

standard issue the extreme cold weather sleeping bag. For the most part, that had 

not been a problem. Now, as we approach the summer season, we are looking 

at changing that issue out because we think that is just too warm a sleeping bag 

for soldiers for the environment in the spring and summer season. There again, 

depending upon the redeployment play, we may have to reissue the extreme cold 

weather sleeping bag because it looks like we will be well into the winter season 

when we complete the redeployment phase of the mission. 

Q. What about Class VII? 

A. Based upon mission requirements, we had to get a lot of war reserve 

stock. For the most part, that involved CONUS forces coming here and 

drawing equipment out of Army War Reserve Stock (AWRS) and also bridging 

requirements. The infrastructure was so bad in Bosnia because so many of 

those bridges were destroyed to limit peoples’ ability to move from one place to 

another, because of the separate factions wanting the protection of a water barrier 

between them and their adversary. This put a lot of requirements on everybody. 

Class VI, uniquely was a problem. Every soldier deployed with 30 days of sundries. 

We found that soldiers had enough soap, shaving gear, and personal hygiene 

products for the initial period. The problem lay in trying to redistribute the Class 

VI sundry packets to resupply those items. That was caused by having 23 different 

base camps in Task Force Eagle. Not only that but there were also civil affairs, 

PSYOPS (Psychological Operations), and Title 10 support scattered all over the 

place. A lot of those units work in the Task Force Eagle area. They were in 

Croatia, Bosnia, and other areas, providing area coverage in sectors that were 

not US domain. It was extremely difficult to get those required items to those 

personnel. 

One of the logistics lessons learned out of this too, was that a lot of these units, 

not necessarily the PSYOPS guys, because they are pretty much self sustaining, but 

a lot of the reserve civil affairs and PSYOPS units did not bring sufficient supply 

and maintenance personnel to take care of themselves. They simply did not count 

on it. I just have this feeling, from many years working with reserve component 

units, that probably a lot of the maintenance and supply personnel were full-time 

personnel and a majority of the personnel who deployed over here were reservists. 

The full-time manning personnel stayed in the States and sent their personnel over 

without maintenance and supply personnel. It made it very difficult because they 

could not requisition anything, they did not have anyone to repair their equipment, 
215

and they were not able to requisition any repair parts. Probably, those people were 

very good in their mission but they did not have the right capabilities on the ground 

to be able to support themselves. I think that was something missed in this whole 

thing. 

If you are going to put a force on the ground, you’ve got to have the right 

capabilities to be able to sustain that force. I think that is part of this multinational 

mix. National support means just that. The United States requirement is to support 

ourselves. When you take that force and put it some place without anyone with the 

capability to provide it -- whether you are talking about medical support, financial 

support, logistics support, or every type of support that an organization needs -- 

you have to be primed for it. Based on a NATO scenario, you have to make sure 

you have the right thing in place to do the job. I think the reason is partly because 

this was thought of multinational logistics. It has been talked about for years, 

about this plan, that we would have multinational logistics. It just didn’t work out 

that way. The French, for example, have no responsibility to support our troops 

that are operating in their sector but they have to do it because there is no one else 

to do that. Some of that is going to be a lot harder in the future. 

I think we have been able to do a lot of that support in this situation because the 

threat is not so great. If we were in an environment where we had an enemy, such 

that it was extremely difficult to move from point A to point B, it would be very 

hard under that scenario to get support to our forces.

 Q. How are the troops being supported with fuel down range? 

A. Fuel is coming in a couple of ways. Defense Fuel Region Europe (DFRE) is 

providing the fuel support. Right now, Task Force Eagle is probably consuming 

75,000 gallons a day. It is coming in by rail into Cerna, Croatia and by commercial 

carrier out of Hungary. It is trucked down from that point. Task Force Eagle is 

predominantly operating out of bag cars on the ground. There is an effort underway 

to use tank cars on the rail system to move fuel. I think, within the next month, we 

will see that in place. The rail system in many places is intact, south of the Sava 

River. So, it is a matter of getting certified fuel tank cars with appropriate fittings, 

so that they can be in position to be filled south of the river to support the troops. 

We looked at a pipeline across the Sava River. The plan would be too hard to do 

based on distances involved, mine fields, clearances, and the cost involved. It is 

something the area greatly needs but it is probably too expensive...probably just 

too hard to do, for the short term. We’re at a point now where we have been there 

4 1/2 months. 

Q. Talk about the reserve force employment in the logistics area. 

A. Lets talk about it within G4 and not so much logistical units. Initially, within the 
216

office of the G4, our requirements generated active duty coming in as augmentees 

to support us, both in planning for the operation and in execution. We took three 

active component augmentees into Hungary and one in Heidelberg. Later on in the 

operation, about one month and a half after we went down range, those individuals 

were replaced with Individual Mobilization Augmentees (IMAs). These were 

reservists who were activated to replace the active personnel. They came from 

the States and their deployment allowed the active soldiers to come back to their 

organizations. It has worked out very well. They were dedicated people. They 

will tell you that it was hard because of personal considerations. Two female 

majors and an NCO -- both female majors are mothers with families. One is out of 

Florida and one out of Central Region. 

It is pretty difficult to get activated like that and get pulled away from your family 

for an extended period of time, not knowing how long, because they are on orders 

for 270 days. The male NCO I have, was activated and is married to a German 

and works for a German firm. So he may lose his employment as a result of this 

mobilization. There is no obligation in Germany to hold his job until he comes 

back. I worked with a lot of reserve people throughout other organizations, such 

as 21st TAACOM. They are very professional people. Everything to me is pretty 

much invisible. You cannot tell who is a reservist and who is active. Everybody 

is in it together. I do not see any differentiation between the way that we been 

treated, their attitude, and what they are trying to do. I think it is a big benefit. 

The only thing that I have seen, to some extent with some organizations in the 

Central Region, is an attitude that asks why send the active component soldiers 

down range because the reservists are away from their families anyway. They are 

dislocated. Why not just send them down range? Let the active people stay here 

in the Central Region. That is pretty much a minority. I would say that, if the G4 

would have worked without the reserve staff augmentation, it would have been 

extremely difficult.

Q. How are troops equipped with water down range? Was that a problem? 

A. That is still adjusting. Initially, all the water that the troops consumed was 

bottled water. That was pushed with the rations. We did not see a lot of difficulty 

with the water. It was just a matter of coming up with the right requirements. 

We felt that it was five one liter bottles per person per day. We found that people 

actually consumed less than that. Probably the only major problems we had with 

water arose when the status quo changed. We have 5,000 troops in Zupanja, 

crossing the Sava, and now, all of a sudden that 5,000 troops drops to 3,000 and 

then to 1,000. You have to be very careful that you have very positive control of 

inventories, so you don’t end up with a mountain of rations or water because of 

a fluctuation of personnel. There were some problems, initially, with people in 

personnel sections in Tuzla intentionally making sure that they had sufficient water 
217

on hand but that has been pretty smooth now. One of the initiatives that is being 

worked now is that FORSCOM (Forces Command) has a water packaging team. It 

is operational now. That may replace some of the requirements for bottled water. 

The other requirement is to obtain potable and non-potable water to operate the 

latrines and showers. A lot of that has to do with the distribution of that water 

and the stockage. Task Force Eagle developed an intensive water management 

program. Contractors were set up to move or deliver water. They were able to 

tap into a lot of commercial sources for water to support the operation. They have 

been able to use excess in some locations and move that water to other locations 

to support operations. It hasn’t been a problem. I wouldn’t say that it has not been 

a challenge. 

Q. Why was hot water such a problem down range? 

A. I would say the main problem with the hot water is with the shower capability. 

The problem is getting it right. A lot of the showers are what are called an 

ablutionary, which is basically a self-contained, double-wide trailer facility with 

showers and latrine facilities. A lot of those have external water heaters. However, 

it does have to be moved in, emplaced, and utilities set up to operate that equipment. 

Everyday, things get a little bit better. I’ve been back here three weeks. I’m sure. 

We went down range to some places, there would be some great improvement 

because of the ingenuity and the capability of the engineer units and Brown and 

Root to do some good things for soldiers. 

Q. How was laundry support accomplished down range? 

A. We used a contract in Hungary. Brown and Root basically set a contract up 

that we would turn in 15 pounds of laundry and the laundry would be back in 

three to five days. The thing we saw there and I assume that it was very similar 

down range, was the amount of bleach that you use. The wear and tear on the 

clothing is much, much greater than I have ever experienced. Underwear, socks, 

those types of things, normally should last an individual a couple of years. Down 

range, they last four to six months. As to Battle Dress Uniforms (BDU), I went 

down range with a lot of new BDUs. In a period of four months, I think a lot of 

those BDUs had about a year’s worth of wear. I think a lot of that is attributed to 

the laundry. Troops initially had a lot of problems with laundry because it was not 

established. It was difficult to win contracts for that service. Laundering sleeping 

bags would have been a problem. How do you do that? So, we worked things with 

the contractor where we would provide clean sleeping bags to unit supply. Soldiers 

would DX (Direct Exchange) the sleeping bags. They would take the dirty ones 

to the laundry. The laundry contractor would provide the supply sergeant clean 

ones back. 
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Also sleeping bag repair. I would say, based on the large number of troops, that 

we had an extensive amount of problems with sleeping bags -- tears and zipper 

problems. I think a lot of that has to do with the living conditions of the soldiers, 

the hours that they had to work, and the sanitary conditions that they had to live 

under initially, until things got set up. 

Q. What kind of logistical support did “stovepipe” organizations provide, such 

as Army Materiel Command (AMC), Army and Air Force Exchange Service 

(AAFES), and Community Family and Soldier Support Center (CFSSC)?

A. I would say all of those units were providing support any way that they could. 

Technical representatives were right on site with the units and when there was a 

difficulty, they were directly involved in diagnosing the fault or getting the part 

from wherever. They were taking care of units which were doing the mission. 

There is a lot of visibility and interest in what is happening over here. I think it is 

a platform for contractors to show the capabilities of their systems and that their 

system would do what they said it would do. So it is in their interests to do a good 

job and to provide good support. 

AAFES initially moved very slowly. Over time, AAFES support may not get 

much more than it is now. There is a conflict I think, with Class A rations and 

contract-provided rations. You’ve got competition with AAFES trying to provide 

quick food, while we are trying to provide rations to our soldiers. There is a little 

bit of a conflict, which is kind of a unique thing. There is kind of a balance to try 

to figure out where you are. So, AAFES is there providing filling requirements. 

A lot of the sundry items -- AAFES has been very helpful with underwear, shirts, 

socks, soap, and those types of items.

Q. What about AMC (Army Material Command)? What support did it provide? 

A. They provided a lot of technical support. We were getting supply support to 

make sure everything was integrated in the foxholes all the way back to the depots. 

We were getting what we needed, when we needed, it as quickly as we needed it. 

When we had problems, people throughout the chain were energized to solve those 

problems. 

One of the real difficulties was the telephone system. Soldiers wanted to call 

home. They wanted to call the States. Then, the rates that the soldiers were paying 

to use Atlantic Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) created a big controversy. 

Q. What were some of the problems with Class IX support down range? 

A. One difficulty, I think, lay with the automation and vehicle support to put 

in an equipment requisition for the part. Really, in the battlefield ULLS (Unit 

Level Logistics System), SAMS (Standard Army Maintenance System) interface, 
219

it was difficult to connect all that stuff together to transmit information from one 

automated system to another in order to get the parts that were required. A lot of 

that, again, was in the infrastructure and the situation. There aren’t any telephone 

lines to be able to transmit that data over autodin. The fax capability was poor. 

Everything with Class IX is getting the right Class IX to the right place, the right 

time, in the right way because a lot of the Class IX is track. How much track bed 

do you need and for what system in what quantities? Do you move it by air? Do 

you move it by sea? Once you get it in the Central Region, do you move it by land, 

rail, or air? Where does it go? What is the storage capability on the other end? 

Also, you need to have the right items but in not too great of a quantity. 

Generally you have an ASL (Authorized Stockage List). You have a PLL 

(Prescribed Load List). Do you have the right mix? You are not building a 

mountain of repair parts in order to maintain the OPTEMPO. You have to make 

sure people use the right priority designators to order parts through the supply 

system. There is a natural tendency to want to be successful. If that means doing 

whatever you have to do to get what you need by any means that has to be watched 

closely because people misuse the supply system. I think that now that we are in 

the sustainment phase, things are being looked at very hard to be sure that, when 

we come to the end of this thing, we won’t have a mountain of parts to redeploy. 

Class IX is not required to maintain the readiness rate. 

Q. What about computer repair parts? 

A. The interesting thing is that, when we were getting ready to go, I got a message 

from the States offering us a STAMMIS (Standard Army Multi-Command 

Management Information System) maintenance team to work on ULLS. We got 

those guys over to a fixed facility in Hungary. We were moving the equipment 

to them. Every person we ran into was using installation property -- computers, 

printers, CPUs (Central Processing Units). Some of it was warranted and some of 

it wasn’t. We used some innovative solutions to obtain the repair parts to fix some 

of these items. 

A lot of it was transporting a lot of equipment, such as broken laser printers by 

truck out of Bosnia into Hungary, identifying the problems, if possible then flying 

them back to Central Region, and having them repaired back here. If they were 

warranted by the contract, return them to the contractor in accordance with the 

contract. Otherwise, we got them repaired in the Central Region and sent them 

back down range. 

So, it was kind of a catch-up thing, in kind of a way, because normally, when 

you go into situations, you start experiencing a backlog. Initially, we had a lot of 

computers and printers that would go down but now that is beginning to show a 

big improvement. I think that some of the things that will be identified in the long 

run will be warranty versus non-warranty equipment, tactical automation versus 
220

installation automation, and fixed computers that are required to do your job but 

are not tactical STAMMIS. I think they have come up with some real good things 

out of this operation so far, to fix things. If you think they are slow, just look at the 

distance from Tuzla back to the Central Region, to get the equipment this far back. 

A lot of the contractors, even here in the Central Region, wanted parts from the 

States. So, there is a long lead time. We also experienced a long lead time back 

here. It is kind of hard when your computer breaks down to take it to AAFES. It 

may take three months to get it back. So, we are in an environment where we need 

a fixed shop. 

Q. What are some of the initial issues involving redeployment? 

A. I think the number one issue from the commanding general is that, when the 

troops and equipment come back from the mission, they are ready to deploy. 

We don’t want to end up bringing stuff back down here which will take a long 

time to sort out. He wants the focus to be personnel and equipment. Exchange 

unserviceable clothing for serviceable. Make parts available to put on to vehicles 

or get the parts ordered, so that when the unit gets back to Central Region, that parts 

are here to fix it. We keep that fighting edge of the Corps and everything ready to 

move forward. If you don’t do that and you get back here, then the amount of time 

that it would take to do the recovery becomes unreasonable. 

The guys down range are there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Their total 

focus is on the mission. When they get back here, there are a lot of distractions. 

People have got personal things to take care of with their families. The idea is to 

recover the best we can before we come home. That ensures that we are ready 

to deploy somewhere else and we have shortened that period of time it takes to 

be ready. Some of the issues that have to be worked out include where all of this 

happens. What’s the flow going to be? What period of time do we have to redeploy 

the force? What are the capabilities of the rail heads? What are the capabilities 

of the infrastructure and the ISB to support the troop movements and all those 

things? Where do we take the excess equipment away from all the units? What do 

we do with the contingency stocks? What do we do with the stuff we bought for 

this operation that can be used for other operations such as self contained lighting 

systems? How do we take the AWRS stocks away from organizations and turn it 

over to AMC to go back into the depots? How do we assure accountability? How 

do we get the ammunition we packaged and get it back to the ammunition depots? 

How do we take ASL and PLL, greater than what is required, away from units? 

We have to correctly identify the overages and have it correctly go back into the 

wholesale supply system. 

Redeployment, in a lot of ways, is more difficult than deployment. How do you 

get the unit that came from the States ready to go back to the States to meet the 

custom requirements? Where do you meet the custom requirements? 
221

Q. Would you compare this deployment with other operations you were involved 

with such as DESERT STORM? 

A. I personally cannot. I think the difference is that, when you know that you 

are going to be involved in a big exercise, you do all the detailed planning, 

coordination, reconnaissance, and then execute it. You then modify it and recover 

and then it is over with. 

I think the difference with this operation is that the preparatory planning was 

much shorter, while the length of the operation was much greater. That has been 

the hardest part of this operation. Everything goes in phases. Right now, we are 

in the sustainment phase and we are looking at redeployment. A lot of things are 

political. In other words, what’s going to come back, when it is going to come 

back, how it is going to come back? We don’t know. 

Q. Are there any other issues that you would like to cover? 

A. I think we covered everything that I dealt with. I think one of the hard parts 

when this thing is; “What do you do with all the equipment you have accumulated 

when it is over?” There are lots of GP (General Purpose) medium tents that 

came from depots. What do you do with all that Brown and Root has bought to 

support this effort? What do you do with the ablutionaries and water trucks, Jeep 

Wagoneers, water heaters, washing machine and dryers? There is so much stuff, 

the disposition of it is probably going to be very difficult. First of all, we do not 

know how fast we are going to redeploy. Secondly, we don’t know if other nations 

are going to come in behind us to occupy our sites and equipment. Are we going 

to simply turn over all this equipment or are we going to have to leave the piece of 

ground the way it was when we made camp? A lot of this land is privately owned 

and it is leased. Some of the land leases require the land to be returned the way it 

was prior to the operation. It is going to be difficult. How are you going to close 

it down and in what phase? With the environment we are in, it is uncertain what 

things are going to be like as we start pulling out. 

Q. Are they working now on plans to close the base camps? 

A. They are already developing the concept plans on phases and options. An 

example is when Camp Harmon closes, can you move the electrical systems back 

to the ISB to expand it to be able to handle the redeployment? What do you do 

with the lumber? There are environmental considerations. What do you do with 

hazardous material? What do you do with a fuel spill?

Q. Whose responsibility is it to plan the redeployment? 

A. USAREUR has written a general concept plan. The detailed plan is going to be 

done between USAREUR (Forward) and V Corps. A lot of that is V Corps. There 

are six officers from the Corps G4 at the USAREUR (Forward) DCSLOG. I have 
222

more people down there than I have here. We were planning a 50/50 split. Most 

of the detailed log planning on how we are going to do this, such as the general 

concept plans, are going to be written back here by USAREUR.

Operationally, most of that will be done back here. A lot of the logistics and 

engineering concepts will be done at USAREUR (Forward). A lot of these are 

unique concepts and based on Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office (DRMO) 

standards -- what can you sell? What is in the Status of Forces Agreements? What 

do the leases call for? What do we have to do? How can we leave this land? What 

do we have to do to turn it back over to the land owner or to the government? 

A lot of the land is government owned. Some of it is through private leases. 

Some of the leases specify different things than other leases. It is just kind of a 

unique situation. It is not as if you were at Fort So-and-So doing a big operation. 

When we pull out, every camp may have to be handled a little bit differently, based 

on who the land belongs to, where it is, and what the lease specifies. 

Q. How is the unit supply system set up down range for the units? 

A. It is a basic standard system. Most of the FSBs and MSBs have SSSC (Self 

Service Supply Center) accounts. The units just requisition what their requirements 

are. The ISB at the 571st Supply and Service has SSSC. The units just use the 

standard Army supply system. 

Q. Can you tell me about the SSSC when people went down range? Was that a 

problem or issue for units deploying? 

A. That was an issue. I think everyone pretty much knew what they would need. 

The unique part of this operation was the environment, which was a challenge. 

It was not like a normal military operation, where you defend, delay, or attack. 

It involves writing extensive amounts of operational orders and operational plans, 

and fragmentary orders and so on. The mission is pretty much straight forward. 

So, the only thing that happens in the way of writing frag orders or executing 

things, is when someone’s mission changes. It is not like everyday, drawing map 

overlays. The routes that were used to move from one place to another stayed 

standard and will probably stay standard for the redeployment. 

Notes

1. Colonel Peter Lichtenberger, Assistant Chief of Staff, G4, V Corps.

2. The 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, generally written “1/4 Cav,” was frequently called 

“Quarter Cav.” The unit has also been referred to as the “Quarter Horse.” 

3. Since 1994, V Corps had been sending battalion task forces on six-month rotations 
223

to serve as part of the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force (UNPREDEP) on the 

border between Macedonia and Serbia. The US portion of that mission is Operation ABLE 

SENTRY. The mission was terminated 28 February 1999.

225

Interview with Lieutenant Colonel Steven P. Goligowski, Chief,

Plans and Operations, Assistant Chief of Staff, G4, V Corps, 

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Major Richard Thurston, 90th Military History Detachment, 

6 March 1996, at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, Germany

Q. Would you tell me a little bit about your career and how you got this position? 

A. I have been an Ordnance Officer my entire career. I was commissioned 

through the Reserve Officer Training Corps in 1979. I did tours in forward support 

maintenance companies with 3d Infantry Division in Germany as a lieutenant. 

I went to the 101st Airborne Division and served on the battalion staff of the 

maintenance battalion. I served as a forward support maintenance company 

commander. I then went to Materiel Acquisition Management School at Fort Lee, 

Virginia and served three years on the staff in what is now known as CASCOM,1

working materiel systems development, testing and evaluation for hardware that 

the Army was considering buying. 

I became a logistics advisor to the Saudi Arabian Army for a year. I was in 

Saudi Arabia at the time DESERT SHIELD started. During the period of DESERT 

SHIELD, I rotated from my advisory job back to CONUS to join the 1st Infantry 

Division at Fort Riley, Kansas. Less than three months later, I went back to Saudi 

Arabia on the DISCOM (Division Support Command) staff as the DISCOM 

plans officer. After DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM were over, I went 

to Fort Riley to serve in the DMMC (Division Material Management Center) as 

maintenance officer for the 1st Infantry Division. I then went to become the Support 

Operations Officer of the main support battalion in the 1st Infantry Division. From 

there I spent two years in school. I attended the Air Force Command and General 

Staff College. I then went to Fort Leavenworth for a year to the School of Advanced 

Military Studies (SAMS). Graduates from this school are required to do another 

year at division or Corps staff as a planner. Because I was a very senior major, I 

came here to V Corps as a plans officer and that is how I ended up where I am now. 

Q. Would you provide me information with how you as a plans officer were 

involved with Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR? 

A. I was briefed while I was still at Fort Leavenworth that this was a hot topic. At 

that point is wasn’t called Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. It was going through 

a series of names as to just exactly what the mission was going to be. I knew 

that some sort of involvement by US forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina was a distinct 

possibility. A lot of planning was being done on that. When I arrived in mid-July 

1995, this became one of the first things we started to work on. At that point, the 

most likely contingency and priority would be the evacuation of the UN troops in 

case things really went bad and they started to get into dangerous situations. 
226

They looked at cases even more dangerous than being taken hostage to cases 

where they became combatants to cases where even one or more of the factions 

started to go after the UN forces which the United States had committed itself 

to rescue. The V Corps was planning on supporting those contingencies if they 

developed. The main force that was going to go down there to rescue them was 

Task Force Lion, which was made up primarily of SETAF (Southern European 

Task Force). They did not have the aviation assets and logistics support assets to 

pull off that mission by themselves and that is where V Corps planning came in. 

We did a series of plans based on DARING LION I and II. 

We even got to the point of going to Hohenfels and practicing that sort of thing. 

It was in the late summer in the September (1995) time frame that we started to 

look at a bigger operation. What if more troops were required than just SETAF? 

What if V Corps forces were called on to do what we are doing now, to implement 

a peace or to enforce a cease fire? We put a planning cell together for a few days, 

about a week, and just did a “what if” drill to see how many troops we would 

require. 

The planning was based upon a lot of assumptions. We did not have any guidance 

that I was aware of from higher headquarters. It appeared mostly to be an internal 

drill of people thinking. We needed to be prepared for all contingencies, so we 

came up with a draft concept of what would be required and the type of logistics 

forces that would be necessary. 

Then we started to look at SETAF and DARING LION again. 

Then in about October, the G3 (Operations) action officer who was the lead 

planner for the staff came back and said that we were going to refine that process 

that we came up with in September and take another look at the operational concept 

but instead of going with the bare bones of the concept, we were going to actually 

develop a plan. We went through a series of plans. I recall at one point there was 

a series of plans -- 40104, 1 believe, was one of the series of plans that dealt with 

American intervention in Bosnia. We started to use that number, and then they 

decided the current plan was so different from 40104 that it did not make any 

sense to call it that anymore. Eventually, we came to call it 4010X because we 

did not know what the final designation was going to be. Eventually, that evolved 

into 40105. That was the number we planned on up until we executed JOINT 

ENDEAVOR. 

Q. How did your office support Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR? What factors 

did your office look at when planning Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR? Terrain? 

A. That was one of the main problems we had. I have come from an operational 

background of actually performing logistics. The only real planning that I did on 

this scale was when I participated in DESERT SHIELD/STORM and in that case 
227

I walked in when the process had already started. I have never gone through a 

process of planning from step one. All I had to go by was what the books had told 

me. The book says that your higher headquarters is supposed to give you general 

parameters, assumptions, and tasks. Within that framework, you develop your 

plan. We had none of that. 

The best way I can describe it is bottoms up planning. The only American 

unit related to 4010X that was doing any detailed planning was the 1st Armored 

Division. They were assuming they would go as the part of Allied Rapid Reaction 

Corps (ARRC) out of NATO. They were doing detailed planning, thinking about 

what they were going to do. We ended up looking at what 1st Armored Division 

was doing and then looking for ways the Corps could support them. This is exactly 

the opposite of the way that the books said that it was supposed to happen. 

This backwards process caused difficulties when the subject of force caps 

came up. Our first thought was just to figure out what we thought we needed for 

manpower to perform the mission. The problem was that no one could define the 

mission. We did not know what the political decisions were going to be and there 

was no guidance from above. We would make assumptions and just say; “Well, 

since we do not know anything else, we will just plan as if there are no caps.” 

Although we all knew there would eventually be a cap. This uncertainty made 

us very sensitive to rumors. We were working six or seven days a week, often 18 

hours a day. You do not want to put your people through that sort of a grind and 

wear them down, make them zombies, and then find out that you went off on some 

wild goose-chase and have to start the whole planning process over. Of course, 

you are not really starting over because now, instead of having fresh troops, you 

have these troops who are ready to quit or resign their commissions and that sort 

of thing. 

So, we did a lot of second-guessing. We called people. We just cold called 

phone numbers at the Department of the Army (DA) or USEUCOM (US European 

Command) Headquarters and said; “Hey, this is unofficial but what do you think is 

going to happen, what is the rumor around the water coolers where you are?” We 

would get the staffs of G3 and the G4 logistics representatives together and just 

share rumors. Collectively, with the G3 as the lead, we would decide we’d better 

go off in this direction with the planning because it looked like that was the way 

Washington might be leaning. That caused a lot of frustration, particularly because 

we had an inexperienced staff. We had several people on the G4 who, like me, had 

never done plans. Others had only been planners for a few months. 

In any other situation, they would be considered new and inexperienced but 

around here, they were the veterans. So, we’d hold our textbook in one hand, 

trying to read what we are supposed to do, and then adapt it to this constantly 

changing environment with no guidance and it was very frustrating. 
228

Q. What about the terrain considerations and moving the equipment down to 

Bosnia. What was it that made you to decide to move things the way you did in the 

direction that you did (the area past the Sava River-Croatia)? 

A. It seems to be usually the case, at least in my experience, that crises occur in 

areas that no one ever thought would be important. The United States always 

seems to develop an interest in these areas. So the headquarters that ends up 

planning for contingency operations, never seems to have maps or at least new and 

up to date maps of the area. 

The first challenge we faced was that we still did not have good, detailed 

information. Because of the political sensitivity of the area, we were barred from 

officially going to anyone, as I said, and demanding maps, demanding information. 

We were still at this early stage, doing this as a contingency drill. 

Many of us had gone through situations like that with the Saudi Arabian incident 

where one day most people had never heard of Saudi Arabia, the next day you had 

orders and you were deploying there. There were many veterans of Saudi Arabia 

saying; “If we wait for a final decision and are told to go, it will be too late and we 

will not get a plan done. However, because of the political sensitivity, we cannot 

ask detailed questions. We cannot, obviously, send anybody down to Hungary, 

Croatia, and Bosnia and actually look around. We must get what maps we can.” 

Many of the maps we acquired had not been updated recently. We had to make a 

lot of guesses about how accurate the information on the map might be. We would 

get out a magnifying glass and study the map. The map says that this is a two lane 

hard surface road but for example, we know that Bosnia has been at war for the 

last four years. 

We know that they have cold, wet winters. For those of us from the upper tier 

of United States, we know that causes a lot of degradation of roads. We know that 

they have had a fair amount of tracked vehicle traffic. We know we all have had 

a lot of experience with that and what tracked vehicles do to roads. We were sort 

of, not being engineers, but were sort of assuming that we would have X-many pot 

holes per mile. We would game play what we expected the roads to be like. We 

would say; “If the roads are like that, how fast can the trucks travel? How long 

would it take?” We knew the road distance, obviously. We knew that would not 

change. We did start to get some information from USAREUR, our next higher 

headquarters, particularly on bridges that had been blown because we could get 

reconnaissance photographs that would show that kind of detail. We pretty much 

knew what was up and what was not. That would allow us to pick routes. We did 

not know what condition the route would be in but we at least knew what bridges 

were up and we would go from there. 
229

We could get information about port usage because the UN forces were receiving 

a lot of their supplies through the ports on the Adriatic Sea. From the information 

we were getting from USAREUR, it appeared that the port capacity was fairly well 

utilized between what commercial traffic there was, international aid, and then the 

UN forces supplying themselves. We knew from deployments to Saudi Arabia 

that, when the United States moved, especially a heavy force like an armored 

division, it would take a lot of supplies. It did not appear that the ports at Ploce 

and Split could handle us without causing just mass confusion and bottlenecks in 

trying to get out into the country. 

We would have to crisscross the French routes and British routes. With the 

French going this way, the British going that way, and the Americans going in a 

third direction, with all the forces bottled up on a relatively small number of roads, 

boxed in by the mountains, it just didn’t look reasonable. 

So, we started to look for alternatives. One of the alternatives was right at the 

very top of this map at Rijeka, at the very tip of the Adriatic Sea. We looked at that 

and it appeared to be a fairly good choice. It had the port capacity. It had a fairly 

good rail net coming out of it that would take us across Croatia to the area along 

the Sava River where we did bridge it. We always looked at that general area to 

come in because it was the most direct land route down. That way we did not have 

to go through all the UN forces. 

We figured that there would be refugees on the roads once peace broke out, 

people who would have to move to go back to their homes. So, we thought staying 

out of Bosnia and keeping the shortest road distance through Bosnia was probably 

our best bet. Also, less worry about hostile forces, in case we had rogue elements 

that decided to turn to banditry or that sort of thing. We didn’t think we would 

have that sort of problem in Croatia because they had had relative peace and the 

government had good control of most of the countryside. Bosnia was an entirely 

different matter. So, there were a whole bunch of things that argued in favor of 

coming in from the north down into Tuzla Bosnia, which we were always told 

would be the center of our sector. It just was a question of how to get there. 

There were problems with Rijeka, according to the reconnaissance information 

we eventually started to get. The American equipment was too large for some of 

the tunnels and the corners on the rail lines were too sharp where it comes off the 

coast and up into the mountains, where it first leaves the coastal plain. We would 

have had to either road march the equipment up to the top of the mountains, load 

the rail cars and then rail it to the Sava, or, depending on the situation -- we never 

really got this far in the planning -- put it on a rail car and go part of the way and 

just sort of portage it at the last minute on Heavy Equipment Transporters (HET) 

around the worst part of the mountains. That started to look like it was kind of 
230

complicated. I don’t remember -- the transportation people would probably have a 

better feel of where that decision was made that it would be too much of a hassle. 

You had to get ships. So, there would be the matter of going to ports here along 

the coasts of Germany and Belgium. Go up to ports here and get aboard ships. 

The ships would have to show up and they would have to sail all the way around 

Europe and through the Straits of Gibraltar and we would have to off load them at 

the Adriatic ports. We would have to have two port support activities. We have 

to have people at the embarkation point and at the other end at the debarkation 

point. USAREUR is very short of people, so that would be very difficult. Where 

would we get the people? We could assume we would get unlimited funds and 

pay civilians to do it for us. It was when we were analyzing it and looking at these 

problems with ports that I heard the first conversations about; “Why don’t we just 

go by rail?” 

We also looked at going by barge but there were problems of where we would 

get off. The river net was good. We could take huge amounts of equipment on 

individual barges so we could put whole units on the barge -- unit integrity, floating 

down the river. The problems came when we got into areas where there has been 

fighting. There was debris in the river where bridges had been blown up. The 

river had not been dredged in a while, so we didn’t know whether we could get into 

Hungary. At a certain point, when we reached the Croatian border, the situation 

started to get iffy. The river flowed into a part of Croatia which was a contested 

area. We would be on barges and again, if some force decided to pump some 

artillery rounds into the side of the barge and sink it, we would lose a couple 

battalions of equipment all in one swoop. The rivers in that area also tend to freeze 

up for four to six weeks each year. In a typical winter, there will be periods of time 

when the river freezes up and the barges cannot run. We did not know when we 

would go in, again worrying about worst case. If we had everything lined up to go 

by barge and we got a cold snap, we could get delayed for weeks because the river 

was frozen. That is why barges tended to fall away and gradually, railroads became 

the first choice for transportation. Rail gave us the most direct control. We did not 

have to depend on weather. We did not have to depend on outside resources. It did 

not take a lot of extra labor to man ports or anything like that. It ran right to the 

areas where we wanted to go. We found out that the Croatian railroads either had 

not been blown up or the Croatians had managed to repair portions of the railroad 

tracks where it would take us down very close to where we wanted to go. Also, 

about that time -- this is late September or sometime in early October -- was when 

we first discussed the possibility of getting Hungarian facilities that would allow us 

to push forces close to the Area of Operations, to get them acclimatized and have 

everything set up so when we got the word to go, we would not be flatfooted in 

Central Region and starting to rail-load. Instead, we would have units down on the 

ground organized and ready to move out and execute the mission. So, we started 

to talk about Hungary, we started to talk about sending some reconnaissance teams 
231

down there to start talking to some of the Hungarians, looking over their facilities 

and that, is eventually what happened. 

Q. What about host nation support? Did we start at ground zero with no supplies 

or was there some supply support down there that we could count on? 

A. When we started out, we knew the Hungarians would have commercial stuff 

available, to some degree. However, since it was a former Communist country, 

none of our military people had ever been there or had any experience -- only what 

we read in the newspapers or what we saw on television. Getting information 

initially was political. 

We knew about the area of Budapest: tourists could go down there. We knew 

that Budapest was a metropolis. We knew there was a lot of stuff going on trucks 

and bottled water was available, and all that sort of stuff. Away from Budapest 

though, we just did not know. That caused a lot of concern because weeks passed 

and we still were talking about it. We still could not get permission to go down 

and look. Then, in November 1995, we started to send some general officers down 

to Budapest to talk about some of the US forces using some Hungarian facilities. 

Then, in the early part of November, we finally got permission, and I got selected 

as the G4 representative to go into Hungary on the first real facility recon to see 

if we could find bases or areas out of the way that we could turn into American 

military facilities. We went down to Hungary for about one week, driving around 

the countryside. From map reconnaissance, we had picked areas that looked 

reasonable. We knew we wanted to be away from the bigger cities both for force 

protection reasons and because we were very sensitive that if we were going to be 

there for a year, we did not want to wear out our welcome. As large military forces 

come into an area and take over an area they sometimes do lose their welcome. 

Get a bunch of 18 or 19 year-old single male soldiers away from their wives and 

girlfriends and they tend to get a little belligerent sometimes, if they are not kept 

under a tight leash. We wanted to find areas where we could control the access, 

both of the Hungarians to us and of our soldiers to outsiders. If some faction 

crossed the border and decided to do a raid against the American facilities, the 

more separated we were, the better the force protection. 

Also, we wanted an area to control American access. If we were in the city and 

the facility was there and the soldier was off duty, it would be very difficult, even 

with a general order, to keep him from walking across the street. If we were out 

of town and it was five or six kilometers from town, we had a much better chance, 

with military police patrols, of deciding who got to go to town; who did not go; 

how often; how many in a group; and that sort of thing. Those were the sorts of 

things we were looking for, as well as, of course, the essentials of the logistics 

infrastructure. Where were the railheads? How big were they? How many trains 
232

a day could they take? Where were the airfields? How big of planes could they 

take? How many planes on the ground at a time? What were the billeting facilities 

like? 

Q. What is split-based logistics and how did that play a role in this operation? 

A. My interpretation is, when a logistics capability operates out of more than one 

location, you have split-based logistics. For example, as with the Class X system 

in Bosnia, we have a significant amount of management going on with the 21st 

TAACOM back in the Central Region but, we also have a significant amount of 

management in the 21st TAACOM (Forward) in Hungary. Then, they link up with 

the actual Task Force Eagle in the Area of Operations. The short answer is that 

when you split your resources, you leave part of them behind but you still depend 

on them to provide support to you, it becomes split-based, as opposed to prepping 

everyone up and everyone going. 

Q. How did split-based logistics play a role in this operation? 

A. We always knew that the assumption was that the 21st TAACOM in the Central 

Region would be our base of support. There was never, that I recall, any discussion 

that we would get logistics from anyone else because the Central Region is closer 

than anyone else. To try to support directly out of the United States would get very 

complicated. Again, we were already guessing that there would be a force cap. 

The biggest thing we had to worry about was that logistics is what I consider a high 

overhead operation. If you want Class IX management; there is a certain number 

of people and a certain amount of hardware that has to be there to do it. If you fall 

below that minimum amount, it just does not work any more. So, you could only 

task organize and pare back the force to a certain point. That frustrates the combat 

arms. They think you should be able to divide everything equally. They think if 

you divide a division in half, the proportion of CSS (combat service support) to 

non-CSS should stay the same. That is not the case. 

For most combat MOSs, any infantryman can do an infantryman’s job, so they are 

interchangeable. In CSS, we have so many low-density, highly-technical MOSs, 

that we quickly lose the capability to reduce the level of support in a particular 

specialty and have to start making choices about which specialties will go in the 

force and which specialties will have to be left behind. For example, an FSB only 

has one M88 recovery vehicle and crew. If you divide the brigade in half, only 

one half will get an M88 in support and to be effective, that half of the brigade has 

to take the whole crew. This is an oversimplified example but it shows how many 

logistics capabilities can’t be easily tailored or task organized. Our challenge, 

then, was to find ways to provide the force with the logistical support they expect 

from the American logistics system but at the same time reach the point where 90 

percent of the force which ended up going into Bosnia was combat arms. The only 
233

way to do that was to have the people and the equipment we needed to perform the 

mission in a place where they didn’t count against force cap. That was one thing 

that just drove us nuts.

We could not get a clear reading -- again, going back to the political decisions 

which hadn’t been made yet -- on what the force cap was going to be. We did not 

know how many people we would be dealing with. We did not know what the 

rules would be for counting people against the force cap. Who counted in what 

area? Did civilians count? Did contractors count? Did military people moving 

from Germany to Hungary count? Did military people moving from Germany to 

Italy count? Again, we were left guessing. We knew that President Clinton had 

made a speech where he had used the number 20,000. Our experience is that when 

a politician says a number, then that is what the number becomes. He does not 

want to be called on it later and have video clips say; “Well, he said 20,000, and 

now he is sending 21,000.” So, we just assumed it was going to be 20,000 but we 

thought we would be safe sending people to Hungary because Hungary had never 

been involved in the fighting. It was just a neighboring country. We thought we 

would be safe there and we thought we would be safe in Italy. 

The initial word, I won’t say it was official guidance because I never saw the 

message traffic but the unofficial guidance which was coming through the staff 

was that anyone who deployed to any place from their home station would count. 

Anyone in Hungary would count and anyone coming from Germany to Italy would 

count. Unless you stayed at your home station, you counted against the 20,000 cap 

and by the way, you have to assume that the Air Force would have so many, the 

Navy would have so many, and Special Forces would have so many. Rapidly, the 

number that we at V Corps could play with was dropping into the range of 10,000 

to 15,000. We just could not see how we could support the logistics operation and 

mission which was becoming clear: to separate the warring forces, to maintain that 

separation, to monitor to see that no one cheated. With the size of the area that 

we were given, and the roads, and the winter, and all these other things we had to 

overcome, the lack of infrastructure even in Hungary, it just didn’t seem do-able. 

The bases we were given in Hungary were former Soviet bases. They would have 

been terrific, except that the Russians destroyed them before they left. 

While we could contract a certain amount of stuff, we had to build a lot of things 

from scratch, things such as new living quarters, maintenance facilities, that sort 

of thing. We started to get the feeling that something was going to have to give. 

Either we were going to have to take extreme risks with the mission, or somebody 

was going to have to back off the force cap guidance. Eventually, the force cap 

guidance was clarified. It was much more relaxed than the guidance we were first 

given. We found out the multinational forces that would join Task Force Eagle 

would not count against the force cap. That gave us a little more flexibility in what 

we could do with the American forces. 
234

Q. Tell me about some of the briefings you gave to the staff and commander. 

A. I personally presented one briefing related to this plan. That was at the very 

beginning, at Hohenfels, in the latter part of September. That was the first look we 

took at a concept for the plan. We were beginning to talk about potential problem 

areas. We knew the winters were severe. We knew that, even though Bosnia was 

in the same climatological zone as the Central Region of Germany, it gets a lot 

more snow. They are in the mountains and they get cold winds. We knew that 

soldiers in Germany do not get a full issue of field gear because they don’t deploy 

anyplace, or historically they didn’t. There were no in-theater contingency stocks. 

That was one of the things that I briefed. I was trying to discuss the big picture, 

the problem areas we were going to have to address, getting winter clothing, for 

example. 

We were going to have to look at the roads that we did not know and try to get 

information. We were still identifying problem areas. The questions I received in 

the briefing reached the level of “How many pairs of size 9 1⁄2 wide Mickey Mouse 

boots2

 will you have to issue?” The briefing did not go well. Nobody in the logistics 

community was on the same sheet of the music as the leaders. Leaders were 

looking for information about how many 9 1⁄2 wide boots we had to issue. The G3 

wasn’t even telling me how many people they were taking yet, let alone what the 

mission was going to be. We didn’t know what kind of force it is going to be. We 

didn’t know whether it was going to be a light force or a heavy, mechanized force. 

G3 was telling me nothing, and leaders were asking me about 9 1⁄2 wide boots. That 

briefing did not go very well. I thought we were going to go back and brief again 

very soon. I thought we would have weekly sessions. We would go in, brief and 

get pounded because we did not have any information yet. And yet, I never had 

any more briefings. We had logistics briefings that the G4 attended. He apparently 

talked logistics a lot. He would come back and tell me things that I was supposed 

to work on but I never presented any information to anybody. Most of the work 

we did present talked about force structure. While force structure was related to 

the mission and to the requirements, the requirements were never explicitly stated. 

I would tell them I thought we needed six truck companies. It is hypothetical. 

“I need six truck companies because . . . Here is my battalion base and here is 

Tuzla. To cover this distance and carry these supplies, I need six companies.” The 

answer would be; “You can’t have six. Based on the number of troops in a truck 

company, you can only have four, because you are bumping up against my 20,000 

cap. I have to have room left over for this aviation battalion. You only can have 

four truck companies. Now go back and figure out how you are going to move 

the things you have to move with four truck companies.” We would go and go 

squirrel around with that number to make it work with four companies and then 

they would say; “You decided you wanted to use medium truck companies. Now 

we decided we don’t want you to use medium truck companies, we want you to use 

PLS (Palletized Load System) truck companies.” 
235

Then we would go back and figure out how to move stuff with PLS truck 

companies. That is where we spent most of the time, talking about force structure 

and talking about how many people were in this type of unit and how many tons 

per man can you move with this type of unit compared with another type of unit. 

If you can move more stuff with this type of unit with less manpower, than that is 

the one we are going to use, even though it might not be optimum with the type 

of cargo we wanted to move. We had to save spaces. That is what most of the 

meetings were about -- battling force caps and force structure. 

Q. What kind of involvement, if any, did you have with contracting? 

A. Thinking back on it now, I can’t think of a thing that the Army couldn’t provide. 

It was a question of time and force manpower. Our assumption was that civilian 

contract personnel would not count against the force cap. Also, even though we 

were barred from going down and reconning and looking at facilities: civilian 

contractors were not banned. Many of them have representatives in most of the 

countries around the world, full time. They are there in case they are needed. 

So, we went to Brown & Root, who have the contract for the Logistics Civil 

Augmentation Program, called LOGCAP. We went to Brown & Root under their 

contract with the government and started to talk with them. That is about the time 

that we went to Grafenwoehr for about six weeks, most of the month of October 

and into November (1995). We had a huge planning cell: 21st TAACOM, 3d 

COSCOM, V Corps staff, 1st Armored Division, Department of the Army field 

operating agencies, all were down there. Everybody who was anybody in Europe 

was down there and involved in various cells working on portions of the “What 

if” drill and the planning process. LOGCAP was down there. My experience was 

that the USAREUR Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Logistics, was taking the 

lead for LOGCAP planning. They were the interface between the contractors and 

the military side.

 We had regular meetings where we would ask the contractor for cost estimates. 

“If we have you build this number of tents in this location, how long would it take, 

and how much will it cost?” The contractor hated to be pinned down because there 

were a lot of variables that they didn’t know. They were afraid that if they gave us 

a cost figure, someone would try to hold them to it even though we assured them 

that this was off the record. This was to just be a planning figure. They were very 

leery about that and we would work back and forth and they would help us as much 

as they could. 

We looked at things such as how much time we could save by using contractors. 

How much money did we think it would cost? Did we think the tradeoff was 

politically salable? We would discuss specific deals with them. They would give 

us a figure of this many million dollars to build a tent city for 6,000 people. Where 
236

can we cut corners and maintain healthful, safe living standards? How can we 

knock a few million dollars off the price tag? They would talk about how we 

could cut down the number of showers per day. The chain of command wanted one 

shower per day per troop; that was the original planning factor. That was a lot of 

boilers and a lot of water. Troops do not have to be quite that clean. You could cut 

down on the amount of boilers to heat this water and save some big money. If you 

come in with gravel floors in your tents instead of wood floors, you save a lot of 

money. We would go back and forth, floating ideas up the chain of command for 

this level of comfort at this cost. “What do you think?” Things would come down 

from EUCOM, from wherever, to USAREUR. USAREUR would talk with my 

counterpart in the ODCSLOG, come back, and say; “I think we have a problem. 

We need to cut some more money.” 

When we finally got permission to go to Hungary on a logistics recon, the 

contractors came with us. We wanted their point of view. “This is a good area 

because I’ve been into town and I see that they have a cement factory and I see 

all sorts of trucks for rent. This is what I can do for you in this area.” We did not 

get much of a chance at that point to talk price. We were still talking ball park 

figures. As far as the estimates went, we were still guessing. We started to get a 

feel for the areas which were suitable for contractor support. From then on, things 

started to snowball a bit faster. We started to get seed money approved at higher 

levels. I remember there was a message which finally came in that granted money 

to Brown & Root to send their representatives down to hire some agents to obtain 

a tentative contract. For example; “You have 50 trucks, I give you a retainer so 

that I can have access to those trucks when I need them.” We also gave retainers to 

hold buildings. That put resources on hold in case we needed them and of course, 

it turned out that we did need them. 

Q. Would you give me an example of contracts? 

A. One example would be life support systems in the Intermediate Staging Base. 

The ISB is located in Hungary -- Taszar Airfield, Kaposvar -- actually, there were 

three locations very close together along the railroad. That is where we had access 

to an airfield and a railroad. There were three towns which were small enough that 

soldiers would not have all the big city temptations but they were big enough that 

they had trucking firms, and electronics firms, lumber yards, that sort of thing. So, 

it was the best compromise of location of facilities and other features.

One of the problems with life support was that the Russian facilities we were going 

to use had been largely destroyed when the Russians pulled out. The contractor 

got the mission to go down and provide life support, such as meal preparation and 

cooks. That saved a lot of military manpower. They went down to put together 

teams to help erect the tents. We used a lot of military engineers from all sources 

as well but there was significant civilian contractor involvement in putting up 
237

shelters. The ODCSLOG at USAREUR can give you more information because 

they are the ones who wrote the Statements of Work for the contractors. I recall 

that much of the lumber came in under contract. There was a lot of discussion 

about tents because we needed so many so quickly. The stock pile of military tents 

did not look like it was going to satisfy our demands as quickly as we needed them 

satisfied. There was a lot of discussion about getting commercial tents but how 

that turned out, I don’t know. It seems to me that the water heating, shower units, 

running water, and that sort of stuff were mostly contract provided. 

Q. What about maintenance planning? 

A. The biggest problem with maintenance is that, unlike most of the other combat 

service support specialties where you have a measurable effect, it is difficult 

to measure maintenance needs. In a truck company, you figure out how many 

operational trucks they have. You figure out the tonnage of each truck. You can 

get a pretty good figure of how many tons you can move with that unit. You 

figure out your need and you can divide that by the capability of an average truck 

company or medium truck company, for example. You come up with how many 

truck companies that you need. 

With maintenance, everything I have been able to lay my hands on, and I am 

an ordnance officer, is in terms of man hours. How many man hours does it take 

to fix a tank? How many man hours do you allocate to support a mechanized 

brigade for six months? I have been unable to come up with any of those standard 

planning factors or rules of thumb we often use for predicting food, water, and 

Class IX repair parts. I cannot find it and I cannot find anyone else who can find 

it. When you have to justify every single soldier you send to Bosnia or Hungary 

because they want to send an infantryman, tanker, or artilleryman, you have to 

answer when the authorities say; “Why do you want to send so many mechanics?” 

Without accepted planning factors to fall back on, just saying; “I am a maintenance 

officer and I have been doing this for over seventeen years,” doesn’t carry much 

weight with many of these commanders. The commanders would simply say; “I 

don’t believe you. I’m not taking the mechanic.” We had very difficult times. We 

felt we knew our maintenance needs from experience. Unfortunately, it was all 

intuition and collective experience. There was nothing on paper that we could turn 

to as a source or justification. That made it very difficult to sell in many cases. 

We tried to lay it out doctrinally. We tried to as much as possible to refer to 

the maintenance manuals and field manuals. We tried to explain to the combat 

commanders how maintenance was supposed to be echeloned. We explained why 

you have backup maintenance capability and that sort of stuff but I don’t think we 

ever gained their confidence on the numbers of people we needed to deploy. We 

were convinced, and I am still convinced, that we took risks. There were specialty 

MOSs (occupational specialties) and numbers of people I wish we could have 
238

sent. I’m also sure that there are people on the other side of the table who are 

still convinced we sent 20 percent over what we needed down there. I still cannot 

prove the case either way. 

Q. Do you think it is this operation which makes maintenance capability so 

difficult to measure or do you think it is doctrine? 

A. I think if we are going to be serious about being deployable, that we must 

have standard planning factors. Planning factors do not give you truth but they 

give you a place to start. Without that, all you can do is argue your point of view 

but you have no credibility. It helps to have numbers in black and white, where 

somebody who supposedly is smart and has been authorized to lay down a figure, 

say, for instance, how many gallons of water per man per day in a certain type of 

environment. Now, depending on the circumstances, the commander may decide 

that, for instance; “Forget it. Eight gallons per man per day costs me this much in 

water purification units and this much money in crews in water purification units, 

and this much money in trucks to haul it around. I’m not paying that bill. How 

much do they need to drink? Okay, we will give them an extra gallon of water per 

day to maybe wash or wipe around their ears or something. For the first couple 

of weeks, they are just going to have to drink water and that is about it. They will 

just get a little grungy.”

We cannot afford, under the circumstances, to take this kind of stuff.” Everybody 

understands that thought process. The logisticians understand that thought process 

from the commander. The combat guys understand that thought process. If you 

got a lot of money and no force cap, the commander might decide to give the 

troops sixteen gallons a day. “They can fill a swimming pool with it, I don’t care.” 

The thing is, everybody agrees on the methodology, even if they reach different 

answers but in maintenance, when you don’t have a start point, it creates problems. 

Instead of discussing the concept of how the operation is going to be executed and 

how you are going to support it, you spend the whole time arguing. “I need two 

maintenance companies.” “No, you don’t.” “Yes, I do.” “No, you don’t.” “Yes, 

I do.” “My dad is bigger than your dad, etc.” With the clash of the personalities, 

the winner is not the guy with the best reasoned argument but the biggest bull 

head, the guy who can hold out the longest. The argument hangs on emotion, not 

on professional analysis. A big factor in that is that we lack an accepted method to 

quantify the maintenance mission. 

Commanders will ask; “How many maintenance man hours do I need to fix a 

tank?” I can figure that out but it takes a long time. There just isn’t time to figure 

it out in long-hand for every unit. 

You do not have the time when you are doing a contingency deployment 

operation. You end up guessing. You end up taking what you can sell to the 
239

commander. It might be too much or it might not be enough. Nobody knows until 

you get on the ground because you have no common reference points. I guess I’m 

a radical. I’m fired up. There has got to be a better way to do this, to estimate 

maintenance force structure requirements. 

As a matter of fact, at V Corps, we are struggling with two divisions and 3d 

COSCOM right now for planning factors we are going to get blessed. I have not 

got the number yet, which is the first stage but we are working through where we 

figure out how to get the number. Then, I am going to have to work it through the 

chain of command to get it blessed. My goal, before I leave this Corps, is to have a 

number that we at V Corps are going to use from now on as an agreed-on starting 

point for planning maintenance force structure. We can add or subtract from there, 

based upon the environment and the OPTEMPO, etc. but at least we will all start 

from the same point and argue in the same terms. 

Q. How did logistics automation play in the planning and execution of the 

operation? 

A. In the planning, automation became a problem. We at V Corps have a wide 

variety of automation levels of technology that go all the way from Pentium, heaven 

knows how much RAM, down to 386 laptop computers with one megabyte of RAM 

and 80 megabyte hard-drives. Depending on how much money you have and how 

whether your predecessors cared about automation, the level of automation varies. 

G4 tends to be the back of the pack. I show up at a planning conference and I am 

dealing with guys who have Pentiums and Windows 95 and I have Windows 3.0

on a 386 with one megabyte of RAM. So my computer is struggling to do graphics 

and I have an older version of PowerPoint than they have. My PowerPoint is in 

black and white. We try and do PowerPoint slides on a black and white laptop and 

you just don’t get there from here. Even if you can do it, when you take your disk 

over to his, his can’t read your version properly. 

We do all of our briefings on computers. The briefings are shown on computerized 

projectors. With my version of PowerPoint, when I make something blue, for 

example, and take it over there, it might turn into another color. Usually it turned 

out black. Usually, several colors turned out black. If you happened to have two 

colors on top of each other, for example yellow on red, and then both of them 

turned black, the general will complain he can’t read the slides. You can’t get there 

from here. Guys see a black slide and you don’t even know what was supposed to 

be on that slide. It just was incredible. 

All of the other sections have much more high speed computers than what 

we have in G4. A lot of things never got written down because you just do a 

PowerPoint slide, and you brief it. If it sells, great and if it doesn’t sell, you go 

back and to another PowerPoint slide. You keep on sending in slides until one 

passes and the last slide just goes into a file folder. Nothing ever got written down 
240

until the end. For a guy who has not used computers, going from written records 

to planning by PowerPoint slides was difficult. Without a written document it is 

almost impossible to maintain a paper trail of how things happen. 

With e-mail, you get messages but the messages usually get deleted to save 

memory. Going back and trying to figure out why you did something three 

months ago is tough. You may recall that you got a message but you usually can’t 

remember what the message said or who sent it to you. There is no paper anymore 

to go back and show how things happened. 

As for the part automation played in this operation, it has been a big benefit, 

overall but I can tell you from prior experience that nobody outside of the senior 

officers and NCOs know what to do if the automation systems go down. No one 

knows how to do things manually anymore. I am speaking from my experiences 

in 1st Infantry Division because that is where I came from, recently. 

Within the main support battalion, if we had a power failure, all the troops would 

sit down and stare off into space. They were lost. All the senior officers and NCOs 

(non-commissioned officers) would have to run around and pull parts because 

none of the young guys knew how to process parts manually. We have not had 

problems like that on Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, at least not yet in Hungary. 

Once everything was stood up, it went well. We had some problems because of 

transportation. Even though we did the advance planning, when the order came to 

move, modifications were made to the flow of units and priorities changed. “Who 

needs to go first?” “Move up a military police unit. Move up a bridge unit. Move 

back the air defense unit.” Things started to fluctuate. 

We tried to adapt to the changes and still make our railhead dates and TA50 

combat equipment issue appointments. TA50 was coming in from the United 

States since we didn’t have stocks in Europe. It was coming in and perhaps 

being shipped to Vilseck for a unit. Well, that unit now got pushed back in the 

deployment schedule. It was not going and a unit from Friedberg Germany was 

going next. Friedberg did not have the TA50. So, we had to arrange to move the 

TA50 from Vilseck to Friedberg. There was a lot of hand-jamming going on to get 

the right unit set to go. I don’t think deploying armies will ever get away from that. 

In the process of that, moving some units up and holding others back, the 

logistics units of the 1st Armored Division got compressed. Some of the ones in 

back moved up and some of the ones in front moved back. The ones in the middle 

got sandwiched. This meant that the bulk of their logistics capability was uploaded 

all at the same time. 

Doctrine says logistics should be echeloned forward. Part of your capability 

should start operations forward before all units close down in the rear. It did not 

work that way this time. It ended up with most of 1st Armored Division logistics 
241

support uploaded and either moving or waiting to move all at the same time. That 

caused a problem because while the logistics units were uploaded, they couldn’t 

perform their support missions. While the units were tied up for movement, they 

also still had repair parts showing up but there was no way to process and deliver 

them to customer units. That caused a problem. Where do you send them? You 

can’t send them to Friedberg because there is no one to receive the parts. Should 

we send them forward? 

Well, there is no one there to receive them forward, either. You are going to have 

to stockpile them someplace. Where is the safest place? Where is a place where 

they would least likely to suffer pilferage or sink in the mud or that sort of thing? 

Then, if we do send them to Friedberg because it is safer, how do we then pick 

them up and move them again when the unit is ready to receive them? They are not 

scheduled in the flow. They were originally scheduled to go straight into the area 

of operations. There is risk in sending them now because there is no one to receive 

them. There is also risk in waiting. There is that much more turbulence in the 

transportation system if I send them to Friedberg. It is a ripple effect. Once one 

thing starts to go wrong or cause a problem, it sends out ripples and everything else 

starts to seesaw back and forth and cause problems. Because of the compression 

of the deployment by the logistics units, we went through a period of time when 

parts were stacking up. The SSAs (Supply Support Activities) that were supposed 

to receive those parts couldn’t. Since the SSAs didn’t get the parts, they couldn’t 

issue them. Tanks and stuff started to go down for lack of repair parts. We had the 

repair parts. We just couldn’t identify their locations and get them to the needing 

unit. We got through this situation because there are always ways around any 

problem. You find another part some place and put it on a special flight or give it 

to a special courier or you give it to a guy you know who is going down on a bus. 

You would say; “Here, put this in your rucksack. Give it to Sergeant Schmedlap at 

the other end.” We worked our way through the problems. 

You can see in the maintenance charts that everything was pretty much back to 

normal. All the operational rates on equipment are looking good, so we know we 

made it through. There was a period of time when everything was very painful. 

Every meeting was painful. Maintenance was an issue because tanks were 

down because we lost the ability to echelon logistics forward. Visibility is great, 

automation is great, but you still have to have people who can execute without 

automation or in spite of automation, sometimes. Sometimes the automated plan 

simply doesn’t work. That brings to mind an experience from the 1st Infantry 

Division with the troops coming out of the schools these days. They are learning 

the automated way. If anything goes wrong, since they do not know the manual 

way, they do not have any idea how to start to develop a work-around. As this goes 

on over the next five to seven years, that last generation that knew manual systems 

is going leave the service. The new kids are bright. They will figure something 

out. It is just much harder to go from scratch, from knowing nothing, than it is 
242

if you have done it without a computer one time. “Yeah, I’ve done this before. I 

do not have to be frightened. We can work our way through this until the power 

comes back on.”

Q. Would you explain your involvement with redeployment? 

A. Redeployment planning is being done right now. One of my subordinates, 

Major Montgomery,3

 is down in Hungary working on it. He is coming back for a 

week this Saturday, to do some coordination with USAREUR, then he will go back 

to Hungary. What I know is what I hear from him on the phone. We are working 

other issues here in Heidelberg. I do know they are working on a two track 

system. Major Montgomery and other V Corps staff members are working on the 

redeployment concept. The 21st TAACOM (Forward) has the job of figuring out 

how to execute that concept. Where were we going to go? How much stockage do 

we need? When do we start to draw stocks down? That is 21st TAACOM’ s role. 

Major Montgomery told me that he will stay in touch with them but it is going to 

be pretty much a 21st TAACOM responsibility to write the execution annexes to 

the plan. 

Q. Are there any other issues you would like to tell me about? 

A. Relating to the deployment, we have pretty much worked our way through 

it. We were deeply involved in the execution of the deployment as part of the V 

Corps Crisis Action Team (CAT) at the Corps Headquarters. Since they stood that 

team down, two or three weeks ago, we have found more and more time being 

spent on other missions. We still have one division here in Germany. We find 

that we are going back and refocusing on them and playing catch-up, because 

they have had their own priorities and have been doing things without Corps for 

seven months. My staff has to look at 1st Infantry Division to see what they have 

been doing. We have to ensure they are ready for upcoming Partnership for Peace 

exercises, training exercises at Grafenwoehr, and stuff like that. We have been out 

of that business for seven months. We have focused on Bosnia. We are starting to 

transition our focus from Bosnia back to normal peacetime operations. 

Q. What was the most significant logistics lesson learned of this operation so far? 

A. I’m trying to find something profound and nothing is coming to mind. The 

biggest lesson for me is the reinforcement of a lesson I learned at Fort Riley back 

in 1990. In today’s Army, no one can afford to assume that they know where we 

are going to deploy or that we will have adequate notice before we deploy. I do not 

know who made the decisions but decisions were made after the fall of the Berlin 

Wall that USAREUR was going to become a Partnership for Peace (PFP)-type 

organization. We were going to help countries like Rwanda, help countries with 

humanitarian aid, and stuff like that. 
243

We had deployed a Corps out of Europe only once this century. In 1991, it 

looked like that was not going to happen again, so we didn’t have to worry about 

contingency stocks, cold weather equipment, hot weather equipment, special 

petroleum products, snow chains, or things like that. USAREUR only needed 

what they needed to operate in central Europe and maybe support a short duration 

humanitarian aid operation once in a while. For short, small operations of this kind, 

we could borrow material to make the operation work. We could put together an 

ad hoc task force. Deploying large units for a long duration mission was not going 

to happen again. Plus, by not preparing for it, we could save a lot of money. Then, 

all of a sudden, we were required to deploy a reinforced division out of a Corps. 

This deployment turned into a major struggle because there were holes in our 

preparations, such as tire chains. When I was here in the 1970s, we were always 

ready to fight the Russians. Everybody had snow chains because everybody was 

out driving. 

Notes

1. Combined Arms and Services Command, previously known as the Logistics Center, 

and located at Fort Lee, Virginia. 

2. Soldier slang for cold weather boots, so called because they are large, black, and bulky.

3. Major Arnold Montgomery, Chief, Operations, Assistant Chief of Staff, G4, V Corps.

245

Interview with Lieutenant Colonel John A. Ylinen, Chief, Automation, 

Assistant Chief of Staff, G6, V Corps, Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Major Richard Thurston, 90th Military History Detachment, 

5 April 1996, at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, Germany

Q. Describe your involvement with Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. 

A. As the senior automator in V Corps, I assisted Task Force Eagle, 1st Armored 

Division, in developing its automation architecture. When it was determined 

that there would be a US Army Europe command post (USAREUR -Forward), 

I assisted the USAREUR Deputy Chief of Staff, Information Management, in 

configuring and setting up the forward command post and all of the automation. 

I also assisted the major subordinate commands that were attached to Task Force 

Eagle in getting their automation deployed. 

Q. What kind of issues did you get involved with in setting up these organizations? 

A. The major issue is that the US Army does not have any automation doctrine 

and has no automation manpower. Everything is taken out of hide. However, 

the leaders continue to want and buy automation equipment and believe that it 

provides enhanced capability to command and control their elements. Therefore, 

the major problem is that there is no doctrine, no training at TRADOC (Training 

and Doctrine Command) schools, and no interoperability with our North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization countries. Because this was a NATO operation, we had 

to work through the interoperability issue. The other fact is that command and 

control systems fielded by the Army do not meet the commanders’ requirements in 

the field and therefore they do not use them. 

Q. You mentioned that there was no training. Did your section provide any 

training to down range units or major command units? 

A. No, my section consists of 12 soldiers. It is not resourced or staffed to provide 

automation training. We did contract for automation training. We also bought video 

tapes to allow people to watch them at their convenience, to become more proficient 

in using office automation. The 22d Signal Brigade, to which I am assigned, did 

do communication exercises and training for the logistics personnel and finance 

personnel who were taking Army standard management information systems 

(training) and needed to know how to hook them up in a tactical environment. 

This is not taught to them at the TRADOC schools back in the States. Besides, the 

systems were never designed to be hooked up in a field environment. 

Q. What types and amount of hardware do we have down range? 

A. We have the Standard Army Management Information Systems (STAMIS) 
246

deployed. We also have many different types of office automation systems. It has 

been reported that we have over 5,000 computer devices deployed in this operation. 

Q. What were the planning considerations on the amount of hardware to deploy 

down range? Also, please comment about computer support personnel. 

A. Prior to deployment, we had several working groups and meetings to discuss 

the types and numbers of equipment that would be deployed. Tactical units are 

not authorized programmers. There are no programmers, per se. “Programmers” 

is an obsolete term, anyway. We requested from the Department of the Army 

that CECOM (Communications-Electronics Command) send over a Tier III 

maintenance repair facility and that was deployed to Hungary to support the 

operation. The USAREUR DCSIM (US Army-Europe Deputy Chief of Staff, 

Information Management) was asked to put in place a Tier III maintenance contract 

for office automation. It was totally inadequate and under-resourced. Right now, 

there is a serious backlog in repair of office automation computer equipment from 

the forward headquarters. Equipment is being evacuated back to Central Region 

(Germany). It forces considerable downtime on the part of the user while his 

equipment is being repaired. None of that is organic to the Corps or divisional 

units. Therefore, it has to be contracted or brought from echelons above Corps. 

Q. What kind of plan is in place down range? Do they use each other’s equipment 

if their equipment is not working? 

A. If the equipment is down, the unit has to take appropriate procedures to share 

computers or to prioritize the utilization of computers until the office automation 

computers are returned. With the STAMIS computers, the units share with another 

element or they have adequate on-hand to cover requirements while a system is 

down. 

Q. What kind of issues did you run into during sustainment and what kind do you 

anticipate you will run into during redeployment? 

A. The biggest issue was that the leaders decided they wanted to e-mail to the 

foxhole. The United States Army has never resourced that requirement. The 

Defense Messaging System is not fielded. Therefore, V Corps, USAREUR and 

the tactical units had to work very hard to procure equipment and do it out of hide 

to provide e-mail to the commanders, staffs, and soldiers deployed. The other 

issue was NATO interoperability. Office automation took on a very important role, 

for which it was never intended or designed, during this operation. The common 

briefing solution for commanders is office automation graphical presentation 

systems. Commanders are not being briefed with their command and control 

systems, be it Maneuver Control System or whatever. 

The only sustainment issue is to maintain and keep all this operating. As you 
247

have personnel rotated, either through replacements or rest and recuperation 

procedures, you have a training issue and a continuity issue that the unit has to 

work through. 

Q. Earlier you spoke about STAMIS. What other types of systems do you have 

in place? Can you also talk about the types of programs used for this operation? 

A. The Army, over the last 15 years, has fielded STAMIS. The majority of those 

were designed 10 years ago, before the Army used local area networks. They are 

all designed around telephone dial-up. They all presume that you have access to 

commercial telephones, such as they do in garrison. The USAREUR DCSLOG 

(Deputy Chief of Staff-Logistics) determined that he would use those systems to 

order repair parts and sustain the units. Therefore, Task Force Eagle was required 

to engineer a solution to get those STAMIS connected over tactical networks back 

to their mainframe host in the United States. This was a deficiency noted during 

Operation DESERT SHIELD/STORM that the United States Army DCSLOG still 

has not solved. Also, the band width requirements exceed the capabilities of the 

Mobile Subscriber Equipment Tactical Packet Network. 

Again, this was noted during DESERT STORM/SHIELD. The Army still had 

not fixed that deficiency and made the network robust enough to handle all the 

users that demand the service. 

To counteract those two limitations, the 22d Signal Brigade and 5th Signal 

Command engineered Point of Presence Router Networks, using commercial and 

TACSAT (Tactical Satellite) circuits. They also procured Motorola networking 

encryption systems to hook up unclassified systems over the Secret Tactical Packet 

Network to have them connected to the unclassified network back in the Central 

Region and the United States. Through the hard work of the 22d Signal Brigade 

and the 5th Signal Command, Task Force Eagle has more and better automation 

data transport support than any operation in history. This has allowed them to 

move information over data networks, rather than by courier, thus reducing the risk 

of the soldiers having to courier information in vehicles, thus avoiding bad road 

conditions, mines, or people who don’t care to have them traversing that road and 

therefore saving lives. 

Q. Have the telephone lines in Bosnia and Hungary been able to handle the 

communications traffic? 

A. The users always demand more band width than the network administrators 

can provide. With the installation of commercial circuits into Tuzla (Bosnia), the 

band width is adequate. 

Q. Tell me about automation contracts established for the operation. Why were 

the contracts established? 
248

A. There were no special contracts established for this operation. Task Force Eagle 

and USAREUR (Forward) used existing contracts established by the Department 

of Defense. The Tier III Maintenance right now is using existing CECOM, and 

5th Signal Command contracts were expanded to allow them to be serviced in 

Hungary. 

Q. Compare the past 10 years of automation improvements and how it enhanced 

this operation. 

A. Through the use of automation, soldiers’ lives were saved, because they did not 

have to get into vehicles and move information between 23 different base camps 

and command posts. The commanders today demand high quality presentations 

in their briefings, thus demanding office automation be present in every command 

post. It’s easy to say that there is more automation being used on this operation and 

more off-the-self commercial software being used in this operation, than has ever 

been used on any previous deployment. 

Q. What are some new technologies that have benefited the operation since 

DESERT SHIELD/STORM?

A. We are using more local area network (LAN) technology on this operation than 

ever has been used before. Every computer in the command post is connected 

to a network. We are using wireless LAN technology. The Soldier 911 System 

that allows soldiers with global positioning systems to know where they are on 

the ground, to avoid mine fields, to survey mine fields, and so on. The Electronic 

Mail system on this operation, both for operational requirements and for welfare 

and morale of sending messages back to families and spouses, is more robust than 

on any previous operation. Through the use of automation, we are providing the 

same capabilities and services that the users have back at garrison. Even more, 

the intelligence community is using more automation to keep track of its reporting 

requirements. The operational staff is using more electronic mapping and graphics, 

especially in the issue of mines. There is more information available on-line for 

soldiers to know the current situations and types of mines data bases that keep 

track of all of that. You can go into any functional area and I doubt that you would 

see any functional area that is not using a computer in some form or fashion to 

perform its function. I must also say that none of them have been trained. There 

are no network administrators on the MTOE (Modified Table of Organization and 

Equipment); there are no computer repairmen on the MTOE. The Army has fielded 

all of this automation and thinks that it runs itself and thinks that people know how 

to operate it and that it is simple enough that it runs itself. That is probably the 

biggest fallacy that our leaders have. 

Q. Did the Army use to have 74Ds (automation specialists) to run such things as 

DAS 3 (digital automation) Vans? 
249

A. Yes, but you only had one, and it was in one box. It did not connect to anything. 

Therefore, you did not have users scattered all over the AOR (area of operations) 

that need help or assistance. When you only have a box and it is all in a van, 13 

74Ds or 74Bs can handle it. When you have 20,000 users, all using computers, 

and you only have 13 staff members to provide them support, how do you do that? 

Q. Where are the mainframe computer systems located? You said there was a 

LAN system. How does that work? 

A. There are no mainframe computers. They all are distributed technology. The 

Army has bought what industry uses. The only mainframe computers are back 

at Army Materiel Command in the United States or at PERSCOM (Personnel 

Command), where the roll up of the Army data base is located. It’s where the 

reenlistment people have to access. At Task Force Eagle and USAREUR (Forward), 

everyone is connected by wires to each other and then out to the rest of the world. 

So, you have totally distributed and available technology where, during DESERT 

SHIELD/STORM, the majority of the information moved between computers by 

floppy disk or “Snooker Net” as they call it. This time it is all moving over wires. 

Q. What specific shortfalls of this operation did your office handle and fix? 

A. I fixed the Army doctrine that was broken. It allowed the unit to be successful. 

Q. Would you provide specifics? 

A. Basically, we used commercial off-the-shelf equipment and technology to 

fill in the holes that existed where the Army hadn’t been able to field systems to 

replace the Defense Messaging System. We went out and purchased Motorola 

Network Encryption Systems so that we could hook up computers through the 

tactical network so they could do their job. We had 5th Signal Command point 

of presence routers, so that we had more robust data communications to move the 

information out of the theater. 

Q. I want to return to a previous subject I asked about 74Ds and computer repair 

personnel. What does the Army do when it needs this type of service? Does it use 

host Nation Support of contracting? 

A. The Army is studying that question. That is what FORCE XXI is proving to 

the Army. You cannot put all this automation equipment on the battlefield and 

expect the computer equipment to run itself. The Army has not decided how it 

will provide life cycle support for all this equipment. Contractors are obviously 

one option. Bulk exchange of equipment is another. Having enough repair assets 

at the direct support and COSCOM (Corps Support Command) level so you 

could just exchange the equipment and evacuate it out of theater to be repaired 

and restocked is obviously one answer. If you are going to take that approach, 
250

then office automation needs to be integrated into the Army structure, just as its 

command and control systems are. You cannot have every theater and every unit 

and every contracting office buying one of every type of thing that is sold on the 

market. You do not have the interoperability and you do not have the ability to 

repair. Local contracts help but they are not cost effective and it may not be the 

right approach for the Army to take.

Q. What is the best storing device to store electronic historic data? Magnetic tape? 

A. Magnetic tape has a life of about 10 years. It all depends, obviously, on the 

amounts of data and what sort of cataloging you want. My recommendation to this 

staff is to gather the data here in whatever mode or solution it has assets to and then 

take it back to the Army historical command and archive it there. CD Rom readers 

and recorders are obviously one solution to minimize the bulk. They have a longer 

life cycle than magnetic tape or floppy disk. 

Q. Ten years from now, do you envision a problem in retrieving this information 

off of the new systems? Or, do you envision that we would be able to take an 

ASCII file and convert it to whatever technology we might have? 

A. You are gathering digital data. It is not going to deteriorate over time, like 

paper products or other things have in the past, during World War II and through 

the Vietnam era. The programs that we saved our data in (Microsoft Office and 

others) if you used today’s programs as a benchmark, all the programs today can 

still open word processing and spread sheet programs that were written 10 years 

ago. So, the short answer is that, 10 to 15 years from now, I suspect that the users 

of that age, products of that time, will be able to open the data that was written 

here today. The best recommendation that I could give to the historical command 

here is, don’t convert it to the lowest common denominator of ASCII. You lose all 

the formatting and technology that the user wrote it in. Leave it in its pure form. 

Don’t convert it to graphical bit map formats. Let the users deal with that issue on 

the other end. If they are interested enough in the research, they’ll determine a way 

to open up the product to look at it. 

Q. What about sending data to such organizations such as Army Knowledge 

Network? What’s the best way to do that? 

A. You would want to send it in bulk file transfer. The issue here, though, is that 

you say “send data.” Most users do not look at the time criticality. It makes no 

sense to tie up the Army and Defense Department’s military network sending data 

that could be easily be put in mail. The network is a precious commodity. Sending 

this sort of data, because of its volume, should not he used to tie up the network. It 

doesn’t need to be there in three seconds. It can easily be mailed back. 
251

Q. What is your vision of the Army Knowledge Network (AKN) and the Army 

Historical Automation System (AHAS)?

A. The issue with AHAS is that it is user unfriendly in its current form. It 

requires the administrators at Fort Leavenworth to grant access and work through 

the permissions level. For the information in AHAS to be of use to the Army 

community, it needs to be ubiquitous. It needs to be available to the user when 

the user needs it. You’ve got to look at the difficulty factor in searching the 

information. You’ve got to look at context-sensitive search engines, so that you 

are not just searching for words but you are searching for the meanings of the 

words. The current web technology will drive the way that information is stored. 

The difficulty that community will have is that it has invested a lot of money 

and time in storing the information in a rather archaic and obsolete form. At the 

time, given that products were paper-based and were not digital, they did the best 

they could. At least they got it on line and available. The challenge they have 

now is to try to bring them into a more current electronic form, where the textual 

information is searchable, rather than the current way, where it is just scanned and 

you have to use key words to get to the right document and then visually scan it. 

Q. Who writes Army programs and what language are they written in? 

A. That is not in my area but Army programs are written by Army Program 

Management Offices that are chartered by the Army Acquisition Executive. 

They are normally functionally driven because that is the way the money is 

appropriated and allocated by the Department of the Army. The programs are 

written or managed out of Software Development Centers in the United States. 

The Software Development Centers either contract to external contractors to write 

the programs or they do it with support staff. They are written in a variety of 

languages, depending on the functional requirement in that location they arc trying 

to solve, either through data base programs or fourth generation languages. If 

they are command and control, it is mandated that they use ADA. If they are 

mission critical or functional level, they can use Database Management Programs 

or other things. Theaters write very, very little code. A code written in a theater is 

written at the signal command level through 5th Signal Command and its Software 

Development Center. Such things as local national pay, this system would be an 

example of something that had to written in the theater because the Army doesn’t 

write a system that pays German civilians. 

Q. Are there any lessons learned that we haven’t talked about during deployment 

and sustainment period that you would like to discuss? 

A. The only lesson I’ll leave as I leave the Army is that it is time that the leaders 

take automation as seriously as they take rifle marksmanship or NBC (Nuclear, 

Biological, Chemical) training. In V Corps, I would consider myself a success, 
252

when the leaders of the V Corps are as concerned about the proficiency of their 

soldiers using their automation equipment as about the scores they made on 

their physical training test or the levels they scored on their marksmanship test. 

It is interesting that we license a soldier to run an oven or an immersion heater 

but any soldier can walk up to a $3,000 computer and drive it without being 

certified or having a license. It is time that the Army took automation seriously 

and invested in the people in the Army to be automators. It is time that we get 

the training institutionalized in every level of our Army Schools program from 

Basic Training, Advanced Training, Primary Leadership Development course, 

Basic Noncommissioned Officers Course, Advanced Noncommissioned Officers 

Course, and throughout the officers training. 

It is time that the Army decides how it is going to use computers to do its business 

processes. The gap between command and control systems and office automation 

systems has been around too long. It is time the Army addressed the issues. It needs 

to be standardized and institutionalized. The Army needs to invest in its Officers 

Corps Functional Area of 53, which are automators. They are the highest soughtafter position to be filled in a Corps and a division. However, those officers are 

not selected for promotion to the same grade level as other branches and have no 

spokesman outside of the Chief of Signal, who cannot represent the requirements 

of the Army. FORCE XXI will teach all of this to the Army leaders. However, it 

will be too late for them to impact the Army force structure before 2010. 

Q. Are there any other things that you would like to add? 

A. There have been a lot of press articles and a lot of leaders that have talked 

about e-mail to the fox hole. They talk about how good all the signal and data 

communications have been. Most of that is a true statement but I don’t want the 

message to get out that it was caused by a bunch of program managers doing their 

jobs. The success that this operation has had in its signal and data communications 

is a direct result of the signal officers and soldiers and functional soldiers who 

are down there on the ground, working in very adverse conditions, to make it 

work. The Army did not do right by these soldiers and did not give them the 

tools they really needed to do their jobs. They took it upon themselves to learn 

how to use office automation computers and the STAMIS and they figured out in 

very trying conditions how to connect them to make the electrons flow between 

them. If program managers or Army Materiel Command take credit for that, it is a 

misrepresentation. It is because the soldiers on the ground made it work that there 

was any success. 
253

Interview with Colonel Floyd C. Hood, Assistant Chief of Staff, 

Resource Management, V Corps, Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Major Richard Thurston, 90th Military 

History Detachment, 15 March 1996, at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, 

Germany

Q. Colonel Hood, what is your relationship to the USAREUR (Forward) 

Headquarters? 

A. As well as being the Assistant Chief of Staff, Resource Management, for V 

Corps, I am the Deputy Chief of Staff, Resource Management, for USAREUR 

(Forward). 

Q. Would you please discuss funding for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR? 

A. Actually, this operation is being funded in what, to most RM (Resource 

Management) guys, would be considered a better way than that in which some 

previous contingency operations have been funded. Most contingency operations, 

you kind of pay the bills and hope to get paid back later. In this case, we have 

received money up front from Department of the Army for the operation. The 

playing field in the resource management arena is bounded by an amount of money 

and we have that money. We are still working because the estimates have changed 

and we need some more -- we are working that with the Department of the Army. 

That is a very positive step in the way we deal with these operations. What it means 

is that we have been able to continue the operation and at the same time have not 

had to shut down the units that were left in the rear and that also have to remain 

trained and ready for their missions. This operation has therefore not adversely 

affected them from a resource perspective. 

Q. How did this come about? 

A. It came about from a program budget decision at the Defense Department 

level -- PBD 711,1

 that took money from various places in the Department of 

Defense and provided it to us for this operation. Of course, one of the places that 

money also came from was from the V Corps. We gave back $77 million that had 

been planned primarily for 1st Armored Division’s training for this year. The 1st 

Armored Division deployed and therefore didn’t need those training funds, so we 

policed up that training money -- we called it an offset to the normal budget -- it is 

a part of the money, what we expect to be $1.3 billion, to fund Operation JOINT 

ENDEAVOR. 

Q. What was your first involvement in this process? 

A. Actually, ever since I got here, since April of 1995, the mission has been out 

there on the horizon, so we paid attention to that as we went along. It got a lot 
254

closer to reality last September (1995). Quite frankly, we RM guys are awfully 

busy in September,2 so we didn’t do a lot of planning for Bosnia in September but 

the planning really picked up in October. 

Q. Could you discuss contracting for this operation? 

A. I guess the best way to answer that is that it all depends. There are contracts 

being initiated on the ground in Hungary, Croatia, and Bosnia today. There are 

contracts being initiated back here in support of that operation. Probably, the 

reality is that resource management and contracting and those sorts of things really 

don’t change very much. We do the same sorts of things when we are deployed 

that we do here -- just in a different location. There are contracting officers with 

Task Force Eagle and USAREUR (Forward). There are resource managers with 

fund certification authority on the ground in both locations with authority. That is 

routine, normal business for us. 

Q. How does this differ from the way we managed DESERT SHIELD and 

DESERT STORM? 

A. It is different. There was not a lot of money provided up front for Southwest 

Asia. There was also a lot of money coming in from various Arab states and 

other countries that provided support in money or in kind. The scopes of the two 

operations are so vastly different; there it is hard to make a good comparison. 

Q. What would be a good comparison? 

A. Haiti would probably be a better comparison. Basically, the units in Haiti were 

scrambling to cover all the bills right up to the last minute. They kind of got bailed 

out at the last minute. If you have half of your unit, for example, deployed to 

Haiti and you have to pay all those bills out of your normal budget because that’s 

all the cash you’ve got, that probably adversely affects the training program of 

your remaining forces. That is not happening in this case. We have an amount of 

money up front to deal with that. 

Q. In a recent briefing, you mentioned funds transferred from Corps to USAREUR. 

A. I told you we identified $77 million in offsets. I was very comfortable with that 

figure, that we did not require that money for normal operations back here. Some 

of the staff guys at USAREUR DCSRM (US Army-Europe Deputy Chief of StaffResource Management) needed more money and they thought we could give up 

another $8.6 million in offsets. In effect, that money goes from normal operations 

here into the Bosnia account. It’s not like the money goes away. We disagreed 

with that. Actually, it is probably going to turn out that there is about that much 

money available and that it will be okay to do that. The disagreement is over the 

more or less arbitrary way that they did that, instead of normal, formal staffing. 
255

Q. Can you discuss the costs of Exercises MOUNTAIN SHIELD? 

A. Exercise MOUNTAIN SHIELD was charged to what we call the pre-deployment 

costs for Bosnia, for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. Those bills were paid from 

the Bosnia account, if you will. Here again, it had no adverse impact on the rest of 

the Corps. 

Q. Was the other training similarly paid for? 

A. The Bosnia funds covered the entire train-up in the first quarter of the fiscal 

year. For ease of accounting purposes, we used 1 January (1996) as a cut-off date 

between pre-deployment and deployment. On 1 January we “task organized” the 

accounts into what they were going to look like for the organization. So all of the 

extra equipment that was bought -- there was an ASL (authorized stockage list) 

increase for the 1st Armored Division -- there were all the training exercises, all 

the travel for the planners -- all that was paid out of what turned out to be about 

$52 million in pre-deployment costs. Then on 1 January, for financial accounting 

purposes, we stood up USAREUR (Forward), Task Force Eagle, and Task Force 

Victory. 

Q. Were there any problems with the accounting classifications on orders? 

A. None that I was aware of. 

Q. Do you anticipate any funding shortfalls? 

A. I am concerned about two areas. If the cost of the LOGCAP (Logistics Civil 

Augmentation Program) contract keeps growing, that will cause problems and we 

are looking very closely at our OPTEMPO (Operations Tempo), both ground and 

air. I think it is a little too early to tell on OPTEMPO but the initial indicators are 

that the OPTEMPO is going to be a little higher than we are resourced at. We 

are resourced, basically, at 1.5 times the Army goal for OPTEMPO. What we 

use as a pacing item in the ground fleet is the Ml tank.3

 When we talk in terms of 

OPTEMPO miles, we talk in terms of the Ml but all the other vehicles have what 

we refer to as an “Ml equivalent.” The goal for the Army is 800 OPTEMPO miles 

for the Ml, each year. We got resourced for 1,200 miles, money to support Class III 

and Class IX for 1,200 OPTEMPO miles. Eight hundred M1 miles translates into 

1,100 miles for an M2.4 Maybe -- you have to look at the cost factor handbook – 

7,000 miles for a HMMWV and so on. There are cost factors for each vehicle for 

Class III and Class IX. Anyway, the DA estimate was 1.5 times the normal flying 

hour and ground OPTEMPO and that is what we were resourced at. It might be a 

little short. It’s still too early to tell. 
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Q. How does a unit get funds from this account to fill its needs? 

A. We don’t differentiate between reserve and active units. Units are units. The 

units that are attached to Task Force Eagle get supported by the TF Eagle RM. 

Units that are attached to 21st TAACOM (Forward) or USAREUR (Forward) get 

supported by that RM there. So there is absolutely no difference between active 

duty and reserve, Air Force, whatever -- they don’t care. The validation procedures 

for requirements are the same for everybody. Everybody gets laid out in the 

budget process. A unit has a requirement. Depending on what the requirement is, 

it goes up for approval and gets resourced. Generally, usually, almost always, the 

requirement comes up through G3 operations channels to validate the mission. It 

is cross-walked into RM channels for a chop. It is usually approved by the Chief 

of Staff 

Q. How did the budget crisis affect funding for the operation? 

A. It affected it a lot. When you are under a continuing resolution, the biggest 

problem that it creates is in cash flow. You know you are going to get resourced 

sooner or later but you have a finite amount and usually a lesser amount than 

planned, of cash in the bank. That sometimes is a cause for creative accounting. 

You sometimes write more checks than you have cash in the bank but you do that 

knowing that the checks will not be presented for payment as quickly as others. 

That’s what I get paid for figuring out. 

Q. How were non-appropriated funds (NAF) allocated? 

A. I don’t deal with non-appropriated funds at all but I am aware that the Morale, 

Welfare, and Recreation activities in Hungary and Bosnia are being handled with 

appropriated funds. Normally, as you know, they are NAF activities. 

Q. What kind of controls does V Corps have on its funds? 

A. The V Corps fits into a kind of unique situation. As I said, I am the V Corps 

ACSRM but I am also the DCSRM for USAREUR (Forward). So in the grand 

scheme of things, the V Corps budget last year was $275 million. This year, it 

is going to be a billion, in round numbers. So we picked up some additional 

responsibilities. We control that by fund certification procedures. Within the 

Corps there is; TF Eagle having authority to certify funds availability, USAREUR 

(Forward), Task Force Victory, 1st Infantry Division, and the Corps Headquarters 

here. That is a standard control process and I have delegated that to various people. 

Q. How much of this funding went to transportation of equipment down range? 

A. I don’t know. You’d have to ask USAREUR because that’s being funded from 

the theater level. That’s one of those things that, early on in the plan, we figured 
257

out that we had no choices about -- deployment and redeployment. They involve 

no commander’s decisions to be made. It made absolutely no sense to dribble 

out the money and that is all being paid at the theater level, the TAMCA (Theater 

Army Movement Control Agency) level. Those are the guys who order the trains 

and planes and do the movement planning, so they are the ones who should pay 

the bills. 

Q. What is the V Corps piece of the funding? 

A. LOGCAP contract, Class II, Class III, Class IV, Class VII, Class VIII, Class IX 

supplies, leases (all of that property down there that the United States is occupying) 

we have leased. Certain equipment purchases that is required to support the 

troops. Contracts are required to support the force. That sort of stuff I told you 

about in rents, I told you about MWR, we are paying overtime for civilians. 

There is contract administration and hazardous material disposal. JSTARS (Joint 

Surveillance Target Attack Radar System), the big intel-gathering airplane -- we’re 

funding the twelve ground stations where they down-link all the information. The 

Video Teleconference operation that you have seen and all minds of miscellaneous 

equipment for forward locations -- computers and so on along with supplies of 

construction material are funded. 

Communications, local transportation, radios and class I breakdown -- a contract 

to take bulk rations and break them down into mess hall kinds of sets and get them 

out. Also included are utilities, telemedicine, and TDY (Temporary Duty). We 

are paying all of the soldiers deployed on this operation $3.50 a day for incidental 

expenses. We are funding that at probably $22 million for the year. 

For the train-up, 1st Armored Division, in late September or early October 

(1995), was already scheduled for a major training density at Grafenwoehr and 

Hohenfels (in Germany). That money was, in effect, already in the budget. All 

of the contracting for porta-potties, and so on, was essentially already done. The 

division was already going on a major training event. All we did was kind of fall 

in on top of it. That was not very difficult at all. Quite frankly, though, to be right 

up front, I never planned for reserve units in all of this. One of the things that many 

units are presently experiencing is that I have been attempting to put an appetite 

suppressant on the headquarters. We live pretty well. We can probably look in our 

desk drawers and here and there and come up with enough pens and pencils to last 

a couple of hundred years. So I have been working hard to not spend any more 

money in the headquarters than is absolutely essential. In my background as an 

infantryman, I tend to think that every dollar spent in a headquarters is a dollar that 

can’t be spent training soldiers. 

Basically, all this is from my perspective and my experience -- I was involved 

in JUST CAUSE, in DESERT STORM, in Haiti, and Somalia. This is not a lot 
258

different from the way that I am accustomed to doing business other than, as I 

said, having some budget specifically for the operation provided up front. All of 

the other things are pretty much the same. We are not confronted with the same 

situation that units involved in Haiti had, where they had to not do second and third 

quarter major exercises, so that they could use that money to pay the bills for the 

operation. A similar thought process and rationale was involved in our $77 million 

offset. At least from my perspective and my experience base, the only difference 

is having the Department of Defense make some money available up front. That 

is a very stabilizing influence for a large operation like this one. 

Q. Of course, the money had to come from somewhere . . . 

A. Well, as I said, $113 million of it came from us, from Europe, from the training 

we had budgeted for but were not going to execute because those units were 

involved in JOINT ENDEAVOR. So there is a piece of it, about 10 percent, that is 

self-financed. You may have read in the paper that, at least the initial increments of 

the money provided by the Defense Department were based on less than expected 

inflation rates. In other words, there was a set inflation rate built into the budget 

when it was put together several years ago. So that was what was appropriated, X 

amount. The inflation level actually didn’t get there, so without decrementing any 

programs, they skimmed off that excess of monies that allowed for the inflation 

-- close to a million dollars -- helping fund this operation. This is one reason that 

it wasn’t painful to do and didn’t lead to canceling something else. 

Q. What impact does the operation have on the budget for the next fiscal year? 

A. I think it is -- well, this is only our piece and I may have that on a chart around 

here -- I expect this operation to cost us about $92 million next year. I don’t have 

the USAREUR total but it is about $92 million so far for the Corps. This will 

cover all those elements of expense I mentioned before -- closing out LOGCAP, 

the tail end of the OPTEMPO that’s out there, supplies, closing out the commo 

(communications). 

Q. Can you explain about LOGCAP? 

A. LOGCAP is a doctrinal concept where you have a commercial contractor 

provide services that the Army can’t do for itself. In the draw down, the Army 

has made some very conscious decisions about things not to keep in the force 

structure. The Army used to have laundry and bath outfits and all kinds of service 

units. We don’t have those any more, we contract instead. The current holder of 

the LOGCAP contract is Brown and Root. I think they were awarded the contract 

in 1992. The basic contract requires them to do planning. Then the contract gets 

activated for an operation. They provided the support in Haiti and Somalia. It 

think it was a one-year contract with five one-year (renewal) options. It provides a 

lot of flexibility. It is a cost-plus contract. You tell them to do something and you 
259

pay them exactly what it costs them, plus a fee. Some people say that this is a lot 

of money. Well, it is, but you also don’t have to do the management of the thing 

that you have given them to do. So it is not totally a bad deal. We could do some 

of these things for ourselves through local contracts but then we have to write the 

contract, administer the contract, and so on. There is a lot involved in it. LOGCAP 

provides operation of the base camps, laundry, transportation services -- things that 

we don’t have the capability to do or that we have chosen, in some cases to have 

LOGCAP do because of the force cap, which is a political decision. We then have 

LOGCAP doing things that we could have brought in soldiers to do but then that 

would have required more soldiers on the ground than were supposed to be on the 

ground. 

Q. What percentage of the total does local contracting represent? 

A. Contracting represents probably 10 percent in Hungary and Bosnia. But of 

course, on the other hand, and this was an issue earlier in Hungary -- who is 

LOGCAP getting to do the work? They are going out and getting subcontractors 

and hiring local people themselves. At least in Hungary, the Hungarians are 

learning the capitalist system very well indeed and very quickly. 

Q. How many German companies are involved? 

A. The one that comes immediately to mind is Auto Joncker down here on the 

corner. We have about 40 vehicles leased from them for transportation around the 

headquarters. 

Q. Any other points we should cover? 

A. The biggest lesson that we have learned, and hindsight is always pretty good, 

is that while everything is working out fairly well, everything would have worked 

better if we had assembled the RM planners at the theater level before we kicked 

off the operation. I suggested to higher headquarters on several occasions but 

they didn’t see the necessity of pulling people in and doing an A-to-Z scrub of 

the plan and who was going to do what, and how. I would say that is the major 

lesson learned. Too many times, people in this business, people get to thinking in 

a civilian or banker way of thinking; “If they need money, they’ll come and tell 

me, and I’ll give them money.” You have to do a lot better in planning, tactical and 

strategic planning, in this business. 

Notes

1. Program Budget Decision 711.

2. RM conducts year-end close-out financial reconciliations in September, at the end of 

the government’s fiscal year.
260

3. M1A1 Abrams tank.

4. M2/M3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle.
261

Interview with Major Ronald Miller, Chief, International and 

Operational Law Division, Office of the Staff Judge Advocate,

V Corps, Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR

Conducted by Major Richard Thurston, 90th Military History Detachment, 

3 May 1996, at Campbell Barracks, Heidelberg, Germany

Q. Please state the mission of the Staff Judge Advocate (SJA).

A. The JAG role in these types of operations is really diverse. It is everything from 

advising commanders on the various aspects of international law and advising staff 

members on some of the same issues, to advising subordinate commanders on 

various operational law issues. 

The area of operational law involves a whole new host of different areas: 

contracting in an underdeveloped or contingency type of environment; fiscal law 

matters, which, again, might be associated with contracting; host nation support 

and laws; working out international agreements with the host nation; drafting 

rules of engagement; training units that are participating or deploying on a given 

operation; and rules of engagement, particularly making sure that units thoroughly 

understand the rules of engagement before they go into an environment. 

Rules of engagement are particularly important in these other-than-war 

operations or peace operations, which includes anything from peacekeeping to 

peace enforcement. Peace enforcement is what we are doing in Operation JOINT 

ENDEAVOR. Because they are so politically sensitive, they are very difficult 

missions to do and the rules of engagement have to be tailored for that particular 

mission. There is difficulty in drafting them. There is difficulty in training. It 

is difficult to grasp the rules of engagement and subsequently apply them during 

the operation. So, we had quite a task for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR. In a 

nutshell, that is an overview of what an operational law attorney would do during 

a deployment and how he would advise commanders.

Q. Would you describe the rules of engagement?

A. Prior to this particular operation beginning, we did not have any rules of 

engagement because it was a non-US mission, i.e., a NATO mission, we did not 

have direct responsibility for drafting the rules of engagement. However, we 

received a warning order to begin planning and training in anticipation of executing 

a mission. We were not sure exactly what the mission was going to be. We had 

some idea that it would be some type of peace operation in the Balkans. We did not 

know whether it was going to be a peacekeeping operation under Chapter 6 of the 

UN Charter or whether it would be a peace enforcement operation, under Chapter 

7 of the UN Charter. We planned for a Chapter 7 peace enforcement operation. 

Eventually, that is what the mission consisted of. We did not have any rules of 

engagement (ROE) at the time; NATO had not given us any ROE. We received 

a mission from the Corps commander to develop rules of engagement that would 
262

allow units participating in Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR to begin their training 

in anticipation of the mission in the Balkans. With that, we developed a set of 

ROE, a training program to expose members of the unit to the ROE and help them 

understand, so they could apply them upon their deployment into the Balkans. 

The ROE were very robust. They were the ROE that we would like to see, 

hoped to see, and to some degree eventually did in fact see for this operation. That 

was the guidance we received from General Abrams. So, we developed a very 

robust set of ROE. They were very restrictive in some aspects because we knew 

that some of the individuals that we were going to confront, maybe in a hostile 

situation, would be noncombatants, they would be civilians. So, we could not use 

the same degree of force that we would use against a combatant or some type of 

hostile force or against some of the hostile elements of the hostile factions that we 

anticipated we were going to encounter in the Balkans. So, it was a very difficult 

task, on one hand to draft a very robust set of ROE and on the other, to place 

restrictions on commanders and soldiers in using the ROE. One example would 

be in the use of riot control agents. The approving authority for the release of those 

was obviously kept very high. We did not want to delegate the authority to use riot 

control agents at very low levels because, again, we thought in many cases those 

agents or riot control means could be dispersed against noncombatants or civilians. 

We did not feel that was a good way to conduct business and at the same time be 

successful in the operation. 

We had to sort of win the hearts and minds of the people and at the same time, 

separate the factions and ensure or enforce the peace in the Balkans. Anyhow, we 

developed and drafted a set of ROE. We incorporated that into the training program 

that took place at Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels Training Centers in Germany. The 

training at the Combat Maneuver Training Center (CMTC) at Hohenfels basically 

consisted of a three-phase process that included briefings, an examination that was 

administered to all personnel, and the Situational Training Exercises (STX) lanes. 

In the STX lanes, various hypothetical situations were created and incorporated 

into training, so that when units went through their training, they would literary go 

down a lane. They would physically go down a lane and encounter a scenario or 

hypothetical situation related to the ROE. 

For example, they might encounter a group of civilians demanding taxes to 

allow freedom of movement through their town. They might encounter a group 

of civilians claiming they knew the location of a mass grave site or that they 

knew the whereabouts of a suspected war criminal and wanted our assistance in 

apprehending that individual. It could be that we were encountered by one of the 

factions that impeded our freedom of movement. 

So, STX included a whole host of training scenarios that forced commanders, 

soldiers, and units to stop, think about, and use the ROE that had been used 
263

for the training exercise at Grafenwoehr. By the way, this was called Exercise 

MOUNTAIN EAGLE.

Q. How are soldiers supposed to deal with war criminals if they find them? What 

are the rules on that?

A. In dealing with war criminals, it kind of creates a quagmire for the soldier on 

the ground. There are some competing interests. Obviously, the inhabitants of the 

countries, the different factions, are demanding justice and they want war criminals 

apprehended, transported to the international Tribunal at The Hague, prosecuted, 

and brought to justice. However, we do not view it as a direct or specified task in 

our mission in the Balkans to apprehend and bring to justice these war criminals. 

In fact, we don’t engage in any investigation whatsoever. 

The bottom line is that if we come into contact with a known indicted war 

criminal, we can verify the information and apprehend the individual or group of 

individuals, depending on the circumstances, without incident; i.e., without loss 

of life, injury, or harm to a US soldier or to any bystanders. If we can do so, we 

will turn them over to the proper authorities for transportation to The Hague to 

be brought before the international Tribunal. I say again, our guidance from our 

senior leaders, both US and NATO, is that we do not see that as our primary role 

or mission. It is viewed more as a byproduct. In the course of separating the 

factions or enforcing the peace, if we come in contact with a war criminal, say for 

example at a check point, verify that individual’s identity (our soldiers have a list 

of indictees and various other paperwork they can use to verify this information) 

if it is so verified and they can apprehend him without risking injury to themselves 

and others, they will.

Q. Are there certain rules that soldiers have to follow when traversing the land in 

Bosnia or is this just a matter of each unit commander setting a separate policy?

A. It’s a little of both. There are certainly rules. There are rules that have 

been developed by the commanders: by the commander of Task Force Eagle, 

by the ARRC (Allied Rapid Reaction Corps) commander, Commander IFOR 

(Implementation Force), and so forth, about certain administrative matters. For 

example, if they are going to go from headquarters in Tuzla to one of the base 

camps in one of the outlining areas; there are certain uniform requirements, in 

terms of wearing Kevlar, flak vest, load bearing equipment, and carrying a weapon. 

There are vehicle requirements. You have to have so many vehicles. I believe it is 

four vehicles that are required for any transportation or movement in and around 

Task Force Eagle’s area of operation. So, there are requirements. There are other 

restrictions placed upon them. There are physical restrictions placed upon them 

because there are areas that they can’t go into because of land mines and things 

of that nature. Most of these administrative measures are in place really for the 
264

protection of the soldier. Obviously, we want to minimize the loss of injury of our 

folks, and loss of equipment. So, that is primarily why the measures are in place. 

The measures may become more stringent if the environment becomes more nonpermissive or hostile or the measures would become more lax if the environment 

becomes more permissive or less hostile.

Q. Comment on how Title 10 relates to this operation.

A. There has been a lot of talk about the US role in terms of Title 10 support to 

deployed forces. Once the US forces leave the Intermediate Staging Base (ISB) in 

Taszar, Hungary and move downrange across the Hungarian border into Croatia, 

they are under the operational control of NATO. They are no longer under the 

operational control of the United States. This begs the question of the residual US 

role, once the forces fall under the control of NATO. The answer to that question 

is that there is a continuing responsibility of the National Support Element (NSE), 

which basically makes up the ISB, which is in Hungary, to provide logistical 

support, i.e. Title 10 support. Title 10 is somewhat of a misnomer because Title 10 

takes up several volumes of the United States Code. 

There are some sections within Title 10 that specifically address the national 

element responsibilities in terms of providing logistical support. That logistical 

support takes many different forms. For the G4 (logistics officer), for example, that 

could be anything from transportation to and from the AOR (Area of Operations), 

to various classes of supplies. For the SJA, or the Office of the Judge Advocate 

(OJA), as it is termed in USAREUR (Forward) in Hungary, that Title 10 support 

consists of providing military justice support, primarily to US personnel out of 

sector. Task Force Eagle deployed with several attorneys and has adequate legal 

support for all of its personnel within Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H) and the US sector 

of B-H, Task Force Eagle’s sector. 

We look upon our Title 10 support as providing supervision over these attorneys 

located in the US sector of B-H and providing other types of support to US 

personnel located outside Task Force Eagle sector of B-H. That would include 

Croatia; the bridge crossing sites near Zupanja, Slavonski Brod, and Zagreb. We 

have V Corps personnel that are working in some sort of liaison capacity with the 

IFOR Headquarters. We have folks that are working with the ARRC in Sarajevo, 

which is actually in the French sector of B-H. So, we have Title 10 responsibilities 

to those individuals. Title 10 support in our BOS (Battlefield Operating System) 

area, as I said, would include military justice. If some of those individuals get into 

trouble, we would have the responsibility to at least have the means to administer 

disciplinary action, to get an Article 15, or all the way up to a court martial. We 

would provide them support, legal assistance. We might have a soldier out of US 

sector who has some sort of emergency and needs legal assistance, for example 

with taxes. A spouse or family member might need a power of attorney or to 

update a will, anything at all. 
265

In addition to the emergency legal assistance, Title 10 support would also 

involve claims, support of maneuver damage, and personnel claims. If someone 

loses something or has something destroyed during the deployment, we have 

personnel on hand to process his claims and paperwork. Various other matters 

may come up, such as questions regarding regulations or administrative law and 

other international areas of law as well. There may be questions which cannot be 

answered by the ARRC legal staff. We provide any support necessary to meet the 

legal needs of commanders and soldiers in those areas outside the US sector. That 

all falls under this Title 10 umbrella.

Q. Are there any legal considerations concerning the reorganization of V Corps 

Headquarters for this mission?

A. In order to answer your question, I have to regress and touch on some brief 

history on how this whole thing took place. That will lead me into discussion of 

how our office fed into that issue. When this thing kicked off last summer, there 

was a lot of discussion of how V Corps was going to be involved. Early on we 

realized that one of our divisions was going to be involved in some capacity. The 

question was how the headquarters and staff were going to be involved in the 

operation. There was some discussion about some sort of multinational joint task 

force that General Abrams might command. 

There was some talk of sending in the Corps forward command post, generally 

referred to as the Assault Command Post. 

There was a lot of speculation about how we were going to be involved in this 

operation. While we were at MOUNTAIN EAGLE at Grafenwoehr, training 1st 

Armored Division for this operation, we came up with the concept of the USAREIJR 

(Forward), or the National Support Element, configuration. There was a lot of 

discussion on how it was going to be manned. It was really a concept thought of 

and developed by the Corps, particularly by General Abrams and the Corps staff. 

The idea was pitched to General Crouch, the CINCUSAREUR (Commander-InChief, US Army-Europe) and he liked the idea and adopted it. 

The National Support Element would provide Title 10 support, support in the 

areas of force protection, developing force protection standards, and compliance 

with force protection standards. In addition to the USAREUR (Forward), we also 

brought various units from the 3d COSCOM (Corps Support Command) and 

21st TAACOM (Theater Army Area Command) with us to make up the National 

Support Element. We referred to that as the 21st TAACOM (Forward). Basically, 

they were collocated with us in Hungary. 

USAREUR (Forward) was located in Taszar, Hungary and the 21st TAACOM 

(Forward) was located in Kaposvar, Hungary. It was approximately a 20 minute 

drive between the two headquarters. Again, the primary role was to provide 

this Title 10 support. This includes everything from receiving the troops during 
266

the initial entry phase, making sure that they deployed, that they deployed with 

the proper training, that they had the proper equipment, and that we had done 

everything to facilitate their entry into the theater and then subsequently, to sustain 

them during that operation. That is the phase we are currently in right now. 

How the SJA office fits into all of that is basically how we were going to man 

these forward command posts and what the responsibilities of each post would 

consist of. We basically decided to send in the USAREUR (Forward) and the 

OJA (Forward) to have overall responsibility for supervising other legal assets in 

country in Hungary and in Bosnia. We would have responsibility for issuing any 

theater-wide guidance on legal issues or other issues that had legal ramifications. 

The 21st TAACOM was going to be the work horse of all of this operation. They 

were the ones that were going to do the grunt work, so to speak. They were going 

to provide the trial counsel to try cases and do courts martial. They were going to 

provide the claims judge advocates. They had legal assistance assets down range 

to support the people in Hungary as well as the Title 10 responsibilities for US 

personnel out of Hungary and in B-H or Croatia but outside the US sector. That is 

how we fit into it. There were a number of discussions with Colonel St. Amand, 

the Corps SJA, Colonel Russulburg, the SJA 21st TAACOM (Kaiserslautern), and 

Colonel Squires, who currently is USAREUR Judge Advocate. We decided to 

man it. The operation up to date has gone fairly smoothly.

Q. Are there examples of support not covered under Title 10 that we are providing?

A. The only Title 10 support that is somewhat in debate really pertains to the 

issue of force protection. There are a lot of discussions at very high echelons 

within the military in various units about our responsibilities for force protection. 

I know there is a difference of opinion between USEUCOM, USAREUR, V 

Corps, and Task Force Eagle about whether the National Support Element has the 

responsibility of (1) establishing force protection standards and then (2) attempting 

to enforce compliance with force protection standards. I don’t know, myself, what 

the answer is. We continue to march on per direction of General Abrams and 

General Crouch but there are some differing opinions out there about (who has) 

the responsibility for enforcing force protection standards that were adopted prior 

to units being OPCON (operational control) to NATO. The issue is whether those 

same responsibilities apply after the transfer of authority from US OPCON to 

NATO OPCON. That is the only Title 10 issue involving legal ramifications that 

is somewhat debatable.

Q. Would you explain the issues in the argument?

A. I would say a “pro” is that the force protection standards were adopted, drafted, 

and incorporated in the training plan. They look out after US interests. They are 

very protective and restrictive. Prior to United States forces being under control 

of another organization or another country, these were the standards that were 

adopted. US forces understand them. They strive to enforce them. A “con,” on 
267

the other hand, is that once the unit goes under the operational control of another 

organization or another country and they get into the AOR, things change. We do 

not have any operational control over those units once they are OPCON to NATO. 

We are somewhat oblivious to the day-to-day activities and the wants and needs 

of the units. We’re not as closely involved in those day-to-day activities. We 

probably are not as well versed in the operational environment as is the unit, or as 

the current NATO operational headquarters. So, to continue to enforce standards 

that were adopted prior to arrival into an AOR, we continue to develop and adopt 

standards under the old thought process and that becomes somewhat outdated, I 

think. This may not be truly what the unit needs. It also places a unit somewhat 

in a conflict. There may be different standards that the United States is seeking to 

enforce as opposed to those the operational headquarters is seeking to enforce. My 

opinion and my opinion only, is that the only time that the United States should 

really be involved in that, is when there is a conflict between the United States 

and NATO. If there is a conflict there that somehow places the soldiers at risk, 

injury, or death, this conflict should be taken up the chain of command through US 

channels and then resolved at the highest level.

Q. Comment on the soldier refusing to serve as part of NATO.

A. Specialist New*

 isn’t with NATO but he refused to deploy with his unit to support 

Task Force Able Sentry, which is a UN operation. Let me regress a moment. It 

was not necessarily that he refused to deploy with his unit. Supposedly, he was 

more than willing to deploy with his unit but he refused to wear the uniform and 

the other accouterments associated with UN service; the blue helmet, the blue 

beret, the arm band, everything else identifying him as being attached to the UN. 

He felt very strongly about it and decided that he would refuse an order from his 

commander to wear the UN uniform. For his refusal to obey to what US military 

authorities felt was a lawful order, he was first offered non-judicial punishment 

under Article 15. 

He was given the opportunity to accept the proceedings under an Article 15 or 

demand a trial by court-martial. He chose, hopefully on the advice of counsel, to 

demand a trial by court-martial. He was tried. I am not privy to the particulars of 

the case but I do know he was convicted of one specification of disobeying a lawful 

order. He was convicted and I believe he received a Bad Conduct Discharge, 

which both he and counsel are seeking to upgrade both with 1st Infantry Division 

Commander and the military appellate court system.

Q. Would you describe any legal matters which arose when troops moved through 

nonaligned countries?

* Specialist Gerald New, a medic assigned to the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry, refused to 

wear United Nations insignia and was convicted by court-martial of failure to obey a lawful order. 
268

A. I see it as really an isolated problem. Most of the proponents of legislation 

that would prevent the United States from coming under the operational control 

of other than US commanders are found outside of the military. There are some 

congressmen that support this type of legislation. Very few people within the 

military are opposed to that. If they are opposed to it, they choose to get out. 

Perhaps they serve their country in some other fashion but they understand that it is 

part of their duty. It is just that the United States, from time to time, assists in some 

of the other types of operations, whether it is a UN or NATO operation. American 

soldiers understand their responsibilities and obligations. 

For Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, it has not been a problem. It is quite a bit 

different from the Specialist New matter, in that there was no changing of uniforms 

or altering of uniforms. The US uniform was worn and will continue to be worn, 

throughout this operation. Once US forces came under control of NATO, this does 

not trigger any US uniform change. Had there been some kind of change (the 

wearing of another uniform, or a different color of beret, or an armband to show 

affiliation with NATO) there may have been some problems, I really don’t know 

if there actually would be. We have not seen any widespread problems associated 

with that in the military. It’s too early to tell whether Specialist New is an isolated 

matter or whether it’s the tip of the iceberg of things to come in the future. We will 

have to see on that one.

Q. Would you describe how the organization of the V Corps SJA is supporting 

this operation? Also, please comment on the Reservist role as far as the JAG is 

concerned. Did they bring on Reserve JAG personnel for the operation?

A. When we decided to put together an office in Hungary, we tried to select 

individuals with a particularized knowledge in a given area of law. The Corps SJA 

was located in Hungary at the USAREUR (Forward) OJA office because General 

Abrams was going to be there. He took me along because of my background in 

international and operational law. 

We also took an attorney who specialized in contracting. 

We took an attorney who specialized in fiscal law matters, who also had a 

significant background in international law. Collectively, we put together an 

adequate background in military justice and international law claims and could 

answer the issues that could pop up relating to those disciplines and advise the 

subordinate SJA offices in Tuzla and 21st TAACOM, collocated in Hungary. So, 

that is how we decided to configure the office. As I stated earlier, I think it has 

been fairly successful. 

The second part of the question concerns (the) reservist role. We probably could 

not have met the mission either down range in Hungary or here in Germany, without 

the help and assistance of some reservists. Initially, the reservists were primarily 

used in a backfill capacity. And, as I said, they were absolutely tremendous. We 
269

simply could not have met our continuing obligations in the Central Region, here 

in Germany, without their help. Actually, prior to deployment, we had a Black 

Hawk aircraft crash off the coast of Cyprus in support of the Beirut Air Bridge 

operation, which involves some of our aviation units. 

The collateral investigation was very long, voluminous, and the finalization, 

approval, and other matters associated with that operation continued even after 

our deployment. Many of the reservists were instrumental in helping with 

that investigation and other supplemental matters which stemmed from that 

investigation. We had an extremely energetic and competent group of reservists 

that filled those needs. Currently, we have a few reservists who have rotated down 

to Hungary. 

There were two majors, Major Hjelmas and Major Olocklane. Major Olocklane 

has a background in international law. Major Hjelmas previously was working 

in our civil-military division. So he takes with him quite a bit of knowledge in 

administrative law. They are currently supporting the operation in that capacity. 

We still have one reservist that is working at Corps Rear at Wiesbaden with Task 

Force Victory. We have another, assisting in our legal assistance office client 

services operation in Heidelberg. She, too, has done an absolutely outstanding 

job. So, then, a lot of kudos (go) to the reservists. I think I could speak for Colonel 

St. Amand. We simply could not have been as successful as I think we were during 

that time frame, without the assistance of the reservists.

Q. Please comment on some of your day-to-day operations in Hungary.

A. We literally document everything. It’s useful for future deployments. When 

a problem arises in the future, the matter may have already been discussed and 

resolved in a previous operation. It’s the old cliché; “You don’t want to have to 

reinvent the wheel.” 

So, everything we do and every action we are involved in, every opinion we 

write, every question that we answer, every place we go, just about every thing we 

do, is documented and recorded. It is very important in our profession to do that, 

for a number of reasons. 

For one, we want to have a historical file we can refer to, in order to answer 

questions that may arise in the future. 

Secondly, lawyers are always looking over their shoulders. They want to protect 

themselves. Many times, the legal advice that is given is very sensitive. We have 

to be accurate. It is dangerous for folks to question advice we have given in the 

past, without a record of things that we have done and opinions that we have 

issued. Without this record, we would be at a loss to protect ourselves from any 

sort of fallout or international incident based upon some sort of subsequent advice. 

As I say, we have to be prompt and accurate and for all of those reasons, it is 
270

important to maintain some sort of record and to document everything from a 

simple telephone conversation, doing a memorandum for record, to something 

more complex like a legal issue as in changing a rule of engagement. 

Early on, in Hungary, it was very important to do a lot of coordination with the 

host nation. Coordination (might) mean sometimes just a matter of walking in and 

introducing yourself. Some of that coordination may have been involved in drafting 

some sort of agreement on conducting business, US business in a foreign country. 

This coordination would take place across the spectrum of offices and personnel, 

everything from the local law enforcement officials, to other government officials 

such as prosecutors, mayors, and customs officials. 

All of these individuals needed to be contacted and introductions had to be 

made in order to facilitate our being able to do business, particularly including 

contracting to move convoys through Hungary and Croatia and making border 

crossings without incident. We were doing everything we could to facilitate our 

movement through those countries and into the AOR and then to be allowed to 

conduct business to sustain ourselves and to sustain folks that we had down range.

Secondary to that would be the day-to-day opinions rendered to questions asked 

by commanders or other staff sections. There was a wide variety of questions. 

Many times, there were questions that they already had the answer to. There were 

questions that were not even remotely a legal question but, as I found with my 

short time in the military, people feel much more comfortable when it has the 

blessing of the JAG, sort of like a sanity check. So, I would say these were the 

significant points: (1) Everything associated with coordinating and developing 

foreign relationships with the various host nations and (2) everything that we did 

down there that would facilitate the operations of ourselves and staff in Hungary 

in our efforts to support the chain of command.

Q. Please explain the legal difference between peacekeeping operations versus 

peace enforcement operations.

A. As I stated before, a peacekeeping operation is defined under Chapter 6 of the 

UN Charter. A peace enforcement operation, which we are currently doing under 

Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, is defined under Chapter 7 of that same Charter. 

Basically, the difference between the two is that a Chapter 6 normally occurs 

in a much more permissive environment. You usually go with the request of and/

or the consent of the different factions or countries. You usually have a Status of 

Forces Agreement (SOFA) that addresses the privileges and immunities or other 

protections that will be extended to you and your personnel while they are present 

in the host nation. With a Chapter 7 operation, on the other hand, you are going 

into a non-permissive environment. At times, you are going in without a SOFA. 

You are going in without the consent and without the approval of the host nation. 

There is probably a greater likelihood of hostilities. There is a greater likelihood 
271

of a combat role that may or may not be associated with your peace enforcement 

operation. With this operation here, it kind of takes the characterization of both 

to some degree. We have a Status of Forces Agreement with all of the countries, 

which is a characteristic of a Chapter 6 operation, as opposed to a Chapter 7. We 

have the consent of the factions. 

The consent was extended by virtue of the Dayton Peace Accords. In essence, 

they asked us to come in and vindicate the peace. Again, that is something you 

would normally see with a Chapter 6 (operation). However, the UN Security 

Council had approved this operation and specifically calls it a Chapter 7 peace 

enforcement operation. The ROE are very robust, rather than being restrictive. 

They would allow for certain type of combat roles or actions, in the event they 

were necessary to enforce the peace. Again, this robust set of ROE is normally 

associated with a Chapter 7 operation.

Q. Why are these ROE considered robust?

A. I can’t get into the ROE, which are classified, so I can’t discuss that in any 

great detail except very generically. They allow for a very broad use of force, in 

the event that the level of force is necessary. However, the overriding intent of the 

ROE is to use a minimal amount of force necessary to accomplish your objectives. 

However, in the process of accomplishing your objectives, if you are met with 

hostility or opposition, the ROE are such that would allow you to use the necessary 

degree of force to bring about that objective. 

In what I would characterize as a more restrictive set of ROE, you might not be 

able to enforce or accomplish that objective if you are met with a certain level of 

force. There is a lot of opinion out there that this is the reason that the UNPROFOR 

was not as successful as we have been during Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR, 

because they went in with a very restrictive set of ROE. Of course, they did not 

have the combat power that we have, either. The UN forces were there as nothing 

more than observers, whereas we observe and, if we don’t like what we observe, 

and if it is violation of the Dayton Peace Accords, we take corrective action. The 

rules of engagement allow us to use the necessary amount of force to bring about 

corrective actions that we deem appropriate.

Q. How can you relate this set of ROE to those in Somalia?

A. I can’t say they were the same because there is a tendency to get away from 

using a standard set of ROE. You want to take ROE and tailor them to your specific 

operation. Somalia has been characterized as a peace enforcement operation by 

some but it was a completely different operation. There were different objectives 

associated with Somalia, compared to this operation. They were clearly not the 

same. They may have been very similar in some respects. I’m sure that they 

allowed for quite a bit of firepower by forces present in Somalia, with the underlying 

premise that you would use the minimal amount of force necessary to accomplish 

your goals. 
272

As far as particulars, again to try to compare them in terms of particulars would 

be divulging classified information. There are subtle differences in the two sets 

of ROE. At least, I would hope there would be differences. I have seen the ROE 

for Somalia and of course, have had a hand in drafting the ROE for this operation. 

There are some subtle differences. I can tell you for one thing for example, there 

is no mention of war criminals in the ROE for Somalia, whereas that is addressed 

in the ROE for Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR because that just was not an issue 

in Somalia. 

Again, those were two different types of operations. There were completely 

different military objectives and a different set of ROE for each.

Q. Discuss some issues involving the redeployment.

A. We feel that the issues that we will probably deal with the most associated 

with the redeployment are predominantly going to be in the area of claims and 

environmental law. There will be some contracting as well to facilitate our exit 

from country. The area of claims runs hand-in-hand with environmental law. We 

envision that there is going to be a multitude of claims filed for traffic accidents, 

environmental spills, and things like that as forces begin to pull out of B-H. We 

are looking to some degree, a restructuring of the USAREUR (Forward) and 21st 

TAACOM (Forward) to ensure that we have the necessary expertise on hand to 

deal with a lot of those issues. Many of the other issues are going to be a constant. 

You are going to have to work out additional agreements or supplements to 

existing agreements, with the host nation, that were not contemplated during the 

initial entry or deployment phase. 

There are going to be significant problems in pulling out of there, aside from 

some of the problems that Task Force Eagle is going to encounter as it leaves. 

Our senior leaders are still wrestling with what the circumstances are going to 

be. We want to shape the circumstances and environment. We don’t want it to 

appear that we are withdrawing under fire. We want to go in and accomplish many 

of our objectives. When the peace is upholding, elections have been held, leaders 

are in place, they’re functioning as they should - we start to pull out our forces 

very gradually yet keeping a very competent and capable force in place to respond 

to problems may arise as we are nearing the one year deadline, which has been 

created by President Clinton. 
273

Appendix A: The Situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, September 1995

By Lieutenant General John N. Abrams

1. Continue what they had been doing. Have a peacekeeping force in 

Bosnia-Herzegovina. Work very hard to find a diplomatic solution. Continue 

to protect the enclaves with the peacekeeping force – principally the big 

three. Rely on an effort that the belligerents must come to the table because 

the sanctions are, in the long term, going to work. When the ministers of 

defense, and Secretary Perry was a part of this, met to review these four 

recommendations, this particular recommendation was quickly discarded 

ass not being a viable option. It was not strong or firm enough and would 

continue to produce the same results in casualties and prisoners. 

2. Initially receiving some favorable support was the idea of the UN being 

reinforced with combat forces and migrating from an article v peacekeeping 

charter to an Article VI, enforcement. The ministers concluded that the UN 

could not orchestrate the execution of that article. The idea of reinforcing 

with stronger forces was a good one but the issue of command and control 

and what kind of framework forces would be put under was the subject of 

great debate. 

3. Have NATO subcontract the problem from the UN, taking over and 

applying the 40104. The problem was that they could not get consensus. 

In particular, there was the clear sign that if that course of action were to 

become the recommended one to the secretary general, or in NATO, the US 

clearly would vote against it. They would do so because of the commitment 

of us ground forces that are tied to 40104. 

4. Withdraw. Cut the losses and get out; when the parties are ready to 

talk, the UN would return but with preconditions. That course of action 

revalidated that the UN effort had been successful in many ways in 

reducing the atrocities and civilian casualties and creating an opportunity 

for humanitarian assistance. 

 What emerged was that the ministers of defense did not buy any of 

the courses of action, concluding that there was no good solution among 

them. While these discussions were going on, and while the UN was at a 

decision point to start the bombing, there were some enormous problems 

with the three enclaves. So much so in fact, that the Dutch were looking 

for someone to replace them in their enclave – actively recruiting another 

nation to come in and take over their mission – because of the casualties, the 

isolation, and the fear that this was not going in any positive direction. They 

were concerned not only about their own safety but also about the viability 
274

of the program of securing the enclaves. The Ukrainians had informed the 

UNPROFOR that they were withdrawing from their enclave, Srebrenica, 

and had moved some soldiers to Gerardo to link up with the British because 

the Muslim and Bosnian-Serbian friction around Srebrenica had become so 

hotly contested that, in their view, they not only could not secure themselves 

but they could not secure the enclave. They wanted out. So these pressures 

coming from the enclaves were driving new action. 

 The notion of enclaves and the trauma of the enclaves caused the 

emergence of the contingency package being a likely course of action, 

under extreme circumstances, for SETAF to conduct an operation to do 

an evacuation in a hostile environment. The viability of this effort and 

the likelihood of execution took on a different dimension because of the 

parallel effort to find a solution for the overall problem and this emerging 

problem with the enclaves. The Americans were viewed as being able to 

do this and do it very well because it was a very sophisticated operational 

requirement and our level of training is well recognized as being able given 

such capabilities. 

 So you had 4104, you had the western European solution built around 

the Euro-Corps, and you had the emergence of this combatant evacuation in 

SETAF. When we started the bombing, what occurred, as I see it, is that the 

Bosnian Serbs were forced to take an action to discredit the effectiveness of 

the UN once again. Their solution was to take hostages. Their solution was 

to take significant military targets away from the UN forces and to attack 

the credibility, not just the justification to resume the bombing but of the 

viability of the UN. 

 The UN was trying to take firm action with the UN study causing debate 

on what to do next. Not long after the decision to resume bombing, the 

Croatians, who had been dormant, began their offensive to regain territory 

that they had lost to the Serbs, under the guise of the treaty no longer being 

in effect. Finally, the enclaves were taking on importance. 

The thing that emerged out of the Paris conference of the ministers of 

defense, when people were really angered by the humiliation of British 

soldiers being held captive and put on television and the French losing 

the bridge because of the surprise attack when the Serbs infiltrated in UN 

uniforms, was that the British and French were committed to taking action. 

It was action not necessarily at the Serbs but action out of frustration with 

the UN. Their commitment was to send brigade-sized forces from each 

nation, not to work for the UN but to assure the security of their own people 

then serving in Bosnia. 
275

 What is occurring right now is that this step that was taken unilaterally 

by Britain and France is viewed by many as the advance of the solution that 

is going to be the next step in Bosnia-Herzegovina: the deployment of a 

Europe-based rapid retain force, perhaps to the size of the Euro-Corps, as a 

ground force commitment there and a reorganization of the effort as well as 

a restructuring of what the concept will be for brining the belligerents to the 

negotiating table to reach a settlement. 

 What impact does this have on us? My view is that the likelihood of 

the commitment of us forces under NATO is tied to peace in BosniaHerzogovina. We will go, and have stated this, after the belligerents have 

agreed to peace. That option is still there and I think it is viable right now, I 

don’t see a US willingness to execute 40104 when the European nations are 

willing to commit, and have already committed, additional ground forces 

for security, and are now linking that to the deployment of a European 

reaction force that could be up to Corps size. 

 At the present policy state, the US contribution will be in terms of 

airpower – very important, the backbone of causing some positive things to 

happen. The US remains the backbone of the embargo that is being enforced 

in the Adriatic Sea, although there are NATO partners in that effort. The US 

is also the backbone of the intelligence effort. I think the US will have the 

capability, under extraordinary circumstances, to go in and quickly get out 

somebody who is threatened, when there is no other alternative. 

 What was surprising is that I don’t think the US anticipated the national 

debate that is ongoing at the moment to occur until the conditions existed 

for 40104 to be executed. I think there was always a link that if 40104, 

the NATO plan was a requirement, there was a strategy that amongst the 

ministers of defense, discussion of the range of options, and questions about 

what the US could do and could not do, boiled over prematurely and created 

a national debate. Right now, this debate, from a US perspective, has caused 

us to come to a policy decision that under almost no circumstances will we 

employ American forces unless there is a peace treaty. Anything short of 

that, we won’t go in with ground forces, although we will do those things 

that I outlined before. That’s my read of where we are now and how it 

impacts on the command’s requirement to be able to provide trained and 

ready forces for commitment to any number of contingencies but more 

specifically for the former Yugoslavia. 

277

Appendix B: Operation Joint Endeavor Lessons learned, 2 May 1996

By Lieutenant General John N. Abrams
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285
286
287

GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

AAFES Army and Air Force Exchange Service

AAM Army Achievement Medal

ACE Allied Command Europe/Armored Combat Engineer Vehicle

AC/RC Active Component/Reserve Component

ASCRM Assistant Chief of Staff, Resource Management

AD Armored Division

ADA Air Defense Artillery

ADC Assistant Division Commander

AFSOUTH Allied Forces, South Europe

AG Adjutant General

AHAS Army Historical Automation System

AKN Army Knowledge Network

ALO Authorized Level of Organization

AMC Army Materiel Command

AMFL/NSE Allied Mobile Force, Land/National Support Element

ANCOC		 Advanced Noncommissioned Officer Course

AO Area of Operations

AOR Area of Responsibility

APOD Aerial Port of Departure

APOE Aerial Port of Embarkation

AR Army Regulation

ARCOM Army Commendation Medal

ARPERCEN Army Reserve Personnel Center

ARRC Allied Rapid Reaction Corps

ASG Area Support Group

ASL Authorized Stockage List

ASCC Army Service Component Command

ATACMS Army Tactical Missile System

ATC Army Training Center

ATMCT Air Terminal Movement Control Team

AT&T American Telephone and Telegraph

AVLB Armored Vehicle Launched Bridge

AWRS Army War Reserve Stock

B-H Bosnia Herzegovina 

BCT Brigade Combat Team

BCTP Battle Command Training Program

BMCT Battalion Movement Control Team

BNCOC		 Basic Noncommissioned Officer Course

BOS	 	 Battlefield Operating System

BSB Base Support Battalion

CAC Combined Arms Center/Crisis Action Center

CALL Center for Army Lessons Learned

CASCOM Combined Arms and Services Command

CAT Crisis Action Team

CCIR Commander’s Critical Information Requirements

CECOM Communications-Electronics Command
288

CENTAG Central Army Group

CFE Conventional Forces in Europe

CFSSC Community Family and Soldier Support Center

CG Commanding General

CIF Central Issue Facility

CINC Commander-in-Chief

CINCUSAREUR Commander-in-Chief, USAREUR

CMMC Corps Maintenance Management Center

CMTC Combat Maneuver Training Center, Hohenfels, Germany

COMIFOR Commander, Implementation Force

COMMZ Communications Zone

CONEX Container express, a reusable metal shipping container

CONUS Continental United States

COSCOM Corps Support Command

CP Command Post

CPU Central Processing Unit

CPX Command Post Exercise

CSG Corps Support Group

CSE Combat Support Equipment

CSS Combat Service Support

CTA Common Table of Allowances

CTC Combat Training Center

C2 Command and control

DA Department of the Army

DA Pam Department of the Army Pamphlet

DCINC Deputy Commander-in-Chief

DCSIM Deputy Chief of Staff, Information Management

DCSLOG Deputy Chief of Staff, Logistics

DCSOPS Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations

DCSPER Deputy Chief of Staff, Personnel

DCSRM Deputy Chief of Staff, Resource Management

DEH Directorate of Engineering and Housing

DEROS Date Eligible for Return from Overseas

DFRE Defense Fuel Region Europe

DISCOM Division Support Command

DMMC Division Materiel Management Center

DMS Defense Messaging System

DOC Deployment Operations Cell/Division Operations Cell

DOD Department of Defense

DoDAAC Department of Defense Activity Accounting Code

DOL Directorate of Logistics

DRMO	 	 Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office

DS Direct Support

DST Decision Support Template

DX Direct Exchange

EEC Emergency Essential Civilian

ETS Ending Term of Service

FA Field Artillery
289

FAA Functional Area Assessment

FAO	 	 Foreign Area Officer

FEBA Forward Edge of the Battle Area

FOD	 	 Field (Grade) Officer of the Day

FORSCOM US Forces Command

FRAGO Fragmentary Order

FSB Forward Support Battalion

FSCOORD Fire Support Coordinator 

FSE Fire Support Element

FSTE Foreign Service Tour Extension

GP General Purpose

GSM Ground Station Module

G1	 	 Personnel Officer

G3	 	 Operations Officer

G4	 	 Logistics Officer

G5 Civil Military Operations

HEMTT Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck

HET Heavy Equipment Transporter

HHB Headquarters and Headquarters Battery

HHC Headquarters and Headquarters Company

HMMWV High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle

HQ Headquarters

ID Infantry Division

ID Card		 Identification Card

IFOR Implementation Force

IMA Individual Mobilization Augmentee

ISB Intermediate Staging Base

JAG Judge Advocate General

JCO	 	 Joint Commission Officer

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff

JOPES Joint Operation Planning and Execution System

JSCAP Joint Service Capability Plan

JSTARS Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System

KIC Kaiserslautern Industrial Center

LAN Local Area Network

LBE Load Bearing Equipment

LNO	 	 Liaison Officer

LOM Legion of Merit

LSA Logistics Support Area

LOC Lines of Communication

LOGCAP Logistics Civil Augmentation Program

Medevac Medical Evacuation

METL Mission Essential Task List

MI Military Intelligence

MLRS Multip1e Launch Rocket System

MMRB Medical/MOS Retention Board

MOS Military Occupational Specialty

MP Military Police
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MSB Main Support Battalion

MSC Major Subordinate Command

MSE Mobile Subscriber Equipment

MSM Meritorious Service Medal

MST Maintenance Support Team

MTOE	 	 Modified Table of Organization and Equipment

MWR Morale, Welfare, and Recreation

NAF Non-Appropriated Fund

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NCO	 	 Noncommissioned Officer

NCOER		 Noncommissioned Officer Evaluation Report

NSE National Support Element

NTC National Training Center

NTV Non-Tactical Vehicles

OC Observer-Controller

OCIE Organizational Clothing and Individual Equipment

ODP	 	 Officer Distribution Plan

OER	 	 Officer Evaluation Report

OIC	 	 Officer in Charge

OJA	 	 Office of the Judge Advocate

OJE Operation Joint Endeavor 

OPCON Operational Control

OPFOR Opposing Force

OPLAN Operations Plan

OPORD Operations Order

OPTEMPO Operating/Operations Tempo

OR Operational Readiness

ORF Operational Readiness Float

OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

PAC Personnel Administration Center

PAS Personnel Accounting System

PAX Passengers

PBD Program Budget Decision

PCC Pre-Command Course

PCS Permanent Change of Station

PDD Presidential Decision Directive

PERSCOM Personnel Command

PfP Partnership for Peace

PLDC Primary Leadership Development Course

PLL Prescribed Load List

PLS Palletized Load System

POC Point of Contact

POE Port of Embarkation

POI Program of Instruction

POLAD Political Advisor

POM Preparation for Overseas Movement

POMCUS	 Prepositioning of Materiel Configured in Unit Sets

POV Privately Owned Vehicle
291

Psyops Psychological Operations

RAOC Rear Area Operations Center

RASC Rear Area Support Command

RDD Required Delivery Date

RF Radio Frequency

RM Resource Management

ROE Rules of Engagement

RSOI Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and Integration

R & R Rest and Recuperation

SACEUR Supreme Allied Commander, Europe

SAMS School of Advanced Military Studies/ Standard Army Maintenance 

System

SCIF Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility

SecDef Secretary of Defense

SETAF Southern European Task Force

SIDPERS Standard Installation and Division Personnel Reporting System

SIGINT Signals Intelligence

SINCGARS Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System

SOFA Status of Forces Agreement

SOP Standing Operating Procedures

SJA Staff Judge Advocate

SRP Soldier Readiness Program

SSA Supply Support Activities

SSSC Self Service Supply Center

STAMIS Standard Army Management Information Systems

STAMMIS Standard Army Multi-Command Management Information System

STX Situational Training Exercise

TAACOM Theater Army Area Command

TAB Target Acquisition Battery

TAMCA Theater Army Movement Control Agency

TAT To Accompany Troops

TCS Temporary Change of Station

TDY Temporary Duty

TF Task Force

TFAS Task Force Able Sentry

TI Technical Inspection

TMCA Transportation Movement Control Agency

TOA Transfer of Authority

TOE Table of Organization and Equipment

TPFDD Time Phased Force and Deployment Data

TRANSCOM US Transportation Command

TTP Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures

UK United Kingdom

ULN Unit Line Number

ULLS Unit Level Logistics System

UN United Nations

UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

UNPREDEP United Nations Preventive Deployment Force
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UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Force

USAREUR US Army, Europe

USEUCOM US European Command

USR Unit Status Report

VCA V Corps Artillery

VRS Army of Republika Srpska

VTC Video Teleconference

XO	 	 Executive Officer

ZOS Zone of Separation
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About the Author/Editor

Dr. Harold E. Raugh, Jr., is the Command Historian, US Army V Corps, 

Heidelberg, Germany. He previously served as the Command Historian, Defense 

Language Institute Foreign Language Center and Presidio of Monterey, Monterey, 

California, from 2002 to 2006. Dr. Raugh is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel 

of Infantry and served on active duty in the United States and in West Berlin; South 

Korea; the Persian Gulf; with the United Nations in Israel, Egypt, and Jordan; in 

Saudi Arabia; and as a NATO detachment commander in the former Yugoslavia. 

He also served as an Assistant Professor of History at the United States Military 

Academy at West Point, as well as at the Pentagon and at the National Security 

Agency. Dr. Raugh, who received his Ph.D. in History from the University of 

California, Los Angeles (UCLA), is the author or editor of seven military history 

books, including the highly acclaimed Wavell in the Middle East, 1939-1941: A 

Study in Generalship (London: Brassey’s, 1993) and over 740 articles and book 

reviews published in prominent international military and historical journals. Dr. 

Raugh was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in the United Kingdom 

in 2001 and a member of the British Commission for Military History in 2008.


Combat Studies Institute Press

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