COMMANDANT

BG Bryan G. Watson

563-6192

<bryan.watson@us.army.mil>

ASSISTANT COMMANDANT

COL Fabian E. Mendoza

563-6192

<fabian.mendoza@us.army.mil>

DEPUTY ASSISTANT COMMANDANT

Mr. James R. Rowan

563-4363

<james.rowan@us.army.mil>

REGIMENTAL COMMAND SERGEANT MAJOR

CSM Robert J. Wells

563-8060

<bobby.wells@us.army.mil>

REGIMENTAL CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER

CW5 Robert K. Lamphear

563-4088

<robert.lamphear@us.army.mil>

ACTING DEPUTY ASSISTANT COMMANDANT–USAR

LTC Timothy M. O’Brien 

563-8045

<tim.obrien1@us.army.mil>

DEPUTY ASSISTANT COMMANDANT–ARNG

LTC Michael S. Mismash 

563-8046

<michael.mismash@us.army.mil>

CHIEF OF STAFF

LTC Brian D. Slack

563-7116

<brian.slack@us.army.mil>

COMMANDER, 1st ENGINEER BRIGADE

COL Allan Webster

596-0224, DSN 581-0224

<allan.webster@us.army.mil>

DIRECTOR OF TRAINING AND LEADER DEVELOPMENT

COL Courtney W. Paul

563-4093

<courtney.paul@us.army.mil>

DIRECTOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRATION

Mr. Robert F. Danner

563-2845

<robert.f.danner@us.army.mil>

COUNTER EXPLOSIVE HAZARDS CENTER

LTC Eric A. Goser 

563-3990

<eric.goser@us.army.mil>

HUMANITARIAN DEMINING TRAINING CENTER

Mr. Jonathan D. Green

563-6199

<jonathan.d.green@us.army.mil>

ENGINEER DOCTRINE, MSCoE CDID,CODDD

LTC Brian J. Davis

563-2717

<brian.davis6@us.army.mil>

MANEUVER SUPPORT ORGANIZATION

LTC Danielle Ngo

563-6282

<danielle.ngo@us.army.mil>

MANEUVER SUPPORT MATERIEL

LTC Chris A. Parks

563-5055

<chris.parks1@us.army.mil>

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United States Army Engineer School

573-563-8080 / DSN 676-8080
E R

DEPARTMENTS

02 Clear the Way

By Brigadier General

Bryan G. Watson

04 Lead the Way

By Command Sergeant Major

Robert J. Wells

05 Show the Way

By Chief Warrant Officer Five

Robert K. Lamphear

96 Dedication

96 Proposed Fallen Engineers

Memorial

43 Past in Review - “Captain George G.

Meade and the United States Lake 

Survey”

By Mr. Gustav J. Person

55 The Engineer Writer’s Guide

58 Engineer Doctrine Update

MANAGING EDITOR

Shirley Bridges

EDITOR

Rick Brunk

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Susan Stevens

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Jennifer Morgan

COMMANDANT

Brigadier General Bryan G. Watson

FEATURES

07 Army Engineer Divers: First in Port-au-Prince Harbor

By Captain Scott Sann, Captain Jerry M. Hallman, and Dr. David J. 

Ulbrich

13 Strategizing the Counter-IED Fight in Anbar Province

By Lieutenant Colonel Todd M. Jacobus

17 21st Century Battle Command Training Is “Infield Practice”

 By Mr. Joshua L. Hutchison

20 Battle Command Staff Training for Engineer Commands

 By Lieutenant Colonel Ted S. Weaver and Major Patrick J. Farrell

25 Support the Castle: A Forward Support Company in Action

By Captain David L. Brewer

29 Quality Verification of Contractor Work in Iraq

By Captain Gregory D. Moon

34 Construction Unit Training Challenges: A Proposal for Construction 

Engineer Qualification Tables

 By Captain Jacob R. Kondo

38 USACE Looks Below the Earth’s Surface for Green Energy

 By Mr. Christopher P. Gardner

40 Warrior in Transition Complex: Growing in Phases

By Mr. Christopher P. Gardner

47 Investigations—Part I: Why Official Inquiries Are Needed

 By Captain Daniel D. Maurer

50 ERDC Serves as Summer Home for Cadets

 By Ms. Megan Holland

52 Mobilizing the National Guard in a Modular Environment

 By Major Kevin L. Becar

56 North Dakota National Guard Trains on New Bridge Equipment

By Staff Sergeant Billie Jo Lorius and Mr. William Prokopyk

60 Engineers Train in Real “Fire Power”

 By Specialist Jessica D. Zullig

61 Castle Ball: 412th Theater Engineer Command Warfighter Seminar

 By Major Jesse H. Stalder

Volume 40 PB 5-10-3 Headquarters, Department of the Army September-December 2010

NGINEE

UNITED STATES ARMY

ENGINEER SCHOOL

The Professional Bulletin of Army Engineers

September-December 2010 Engineer 1

Front cover: During Operation Unified 

Response at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, divers from 

the 544th Engineer Dive Team drill holes for 

emplacing rebar to reinforce a damaged pile. 

(See article on page 7.) (U.S. Navy photo)

Back cover: U.S. Army photos
2 Engineer September-December 2010

 -

Clear The Way 

Brigadier General Bryan G. Watson

Commandant, United States Army Engineer School

I

am simply awed by the daily accomplishments of this Regiment of Engineers...the way our Soldiers serve 

our Army and Nation from the front and 

by their example. From our combat engineers clearing routes throughout Afghanistan; to our construction engineers 

cutting new roads, erecting bridges, and 

building force bed-down facilities; to our 

geospatial engineers ensuring that leaders from platoon- to theater-level can visualize the operating environment with 

the most current data. You support the 

fight with relentless resolve every day, 

understanding that the stakes are high; 

you never falter to accomplish what is 

asked. Never has there been a more exciting time to be an 

Army engineer, and never has the demand for engineer 

warriors been greater. Frankly, it is humbling to be a leader 

among such incredible engineer Soldiers—all of you sappers 

at heart!

But I’ve always felt that we, at Fort Leonard Wood, could 

do more to directly support our units that are preparing for 

combat and also to learn from your experience and rapidly 

integrate those lessons into our doctrine and leader development. This was confirmed during the last ENFORCE when 

our senior commanders and command sergeants major asked 

that we modify our Regimental Campaign Plan to include 

a line of effort specifically focused on “Support to Current 

Operations.” During our recent Regimental Commander’s 

Council, held at the Devil’s Lake Regional Training Center 

in North Dakota, senior leaders approved our modification 

to the Regimental Campaign Plan to better support current 

operations. One of the major areas that commanders suggested we target for immediate improvement was our collection of unit lessons learned and rapid integration of those 

lessons into our training and leader development (Campaign 

Plan Decisive Point [DP] 3-10). Following is an update on 

this critical effort, along with a discussion of how you can do 

your part as members of this profession.

The Problem. In the past, unit training at our Combat Training Centers (CTCs)—predominantly by Active 

Army units—was the center of gravity for collecting lessons 

learned. The Combined Arms Lessons Learned (CALL) Office at Fort Leavenworth was the central repository and 

engine of change to our doctrine and leader development. 

CTC observer/trainers were highly sought to be instructors 

at our schools—and were managed that way. 

Today, that is no longer the case...in 

fact, it hasn’t been the case for 9 years! 

The most fertile and relevant ground for 

collecting lessons learned is the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan—albeit 

balanced by CTC experiences as we explore the challenges of full spectrum operations that we will face in the future. 

Units that recently return from combat 

are the new center of gravity of a learning and adaptive Army. And the former 

central clearing for lessons learned that 

would shape future doctrine, force design, and leader development has given 

way to a dispersed network of learning. 

Some examples of the new learning network are warfighting forums; assessment teams that deploy to visit units in the fight; unit post deployment after 

action reviews (AARs) conducted by Active Army, United 

States Army Reserve, and Army National Guard units; 

SIPR and NIPR websites; and blogs. In many cases, it is 

the students who recently returned from the fight who 

bring the most relevant instruction to our officer/warrant 

officer/noncommissioned officer (NCO) professional development education.

What We Must Do. This new network of learning, the 

bottom-up nature of relevant lessons, and the need to rapidly turn those lessons into adaptive action with the speed 

and urgency of war, demand that we completely “rewire” 

our processes within the Regimental Headquarters to better serve our profession. Here are the steps we have taken 

within our Regimental Headquarters:

■ I’ve charged the Director of Training and Leader Development (DOTLD) with mission command for the “Support Current Operations” line of effort to put a single 

organization in charge of monitoring and orchestrating 

the learning network, align lessons learned with rapidly 

modifying doctrine and leader development, and give 

broad authority to alter professional military education (PME) course instruction based on lessons learned 

so that yesterday’s combat experience is taught in tomorrow’s classroom. 

■ We’ve increased the capacity of our Training Integration Office (TIO) to become the hub of adaptive education. Their job is to connect with field units, generate assessment teams, attend unit postdeployment AARs, 

collect the lessons learned in coordination with
Engineer 3

Maneuver Support Center of Excellence efforts and 

CALL, and pass off the most relevant lessons to the Director of Instruction for integration into the classroom.

■ I’ve moved the Counter Explosive Hazards Center

(CEHC) under DOTLD so that we can begin to institutionalize counter-improvised explosive device (C-IED) 

training into all facets of our PME and leverage CEHC’s 

ability to track the latest enemy and friendly tactics, 

techniques, and procedures (TTP) in order to keep C-IED 

training highly relevant to the current fight. 

■ I’ve shifted the main effort of our education Quality Assurance Element (QAE) toward ensuring that classroom 

instruction remains relevant and incorporates the latest 

lessons learned from units. 

■ I’ve established a nominative program for the selection

of instructors to ensure that we have the right leaders—with the most recent combat experience—training and educating the next generation of engineers with 

the added incentive that their follow-on assignment will 

be closely managed.

What Has Been Accomplished. These past few 

months, we have made significant gains in putting the programs in place to achieve the objectives set by field commanders in DP 3-1. CEHC is now under DOTLD, and integration of C-IED training into all aspects of officer, warrant 

officer, and NCO education is well underway. DOTLD has 

participated in the postdeployment AARs of the 372d Engineer Brigade, 412th Engineer Command, and 203d Engineer Battalion. We covered down on the full spectrum 

operations rotation of 3d Brigade Combat Team, 82d Airborne Division, and focused on fire support officer (FSO) 

lessons for the 46th Engineer Battalion. We also deployed 

an assessment team to Afghanistan in September to collect observations from units in the fight; the Initial Impression Report can be downloaded at <https://call2.army.

mil/toc.aspx?document=6462>. Finally, we have begun 

a comprehensive relook at the program of instruction for 

our NCOs attending the Advanced Leader Course (ALC) 

and Senior Leader Course (SLC), as well as our young officers attending the Captains Career Course, to ensure that 

the training and education we provide is consistent with

combat observations, reflects the contemporary operating 

environment, and challenges the student to think adaptively. I’m pleased with the progress we are making, but we are 

far from being finished.

How You Can Help. If you are truly a member of this 

profession, you will agree that we have to do a better job 

of being a learning and adapting organization. And if you 

are truly a member of this profession...if you love this Regiment...you want to know how you can help achieve this

vision. It’s simple:

■ Actively participate in the various forums where we discuss observations and lessons learned; help us understand where we need to improve our doctrine, organization, training, materiel, and leader development for 

the next fight.

■ Give us visibility of your unit’s postdeployment AAR

session and report; demand that someone from the

Regimental Headquarters attend.

■ Take us up on the invitation to be part of critical task

selection boards or course content reviews so we can 

ensure that what we are teaching tomorrow’s leaders is 

relevant and current and that it produces the leaders 

you need to win.

■ Encourage your best and brightest leaders to come to 

the Engineer School as instructors for our next generation of officers, warrant officers, and NCOs; nominate 

them so we can manage their assignment to Fort Leonard Wood and their follow-on assignment. One instructor touches hundreds of future leaders each year; only 

our best should be given that responsibility.

In the next “Clear the Way” article, I hope to report on 

progress that we are making on another vitally important 

decisive point of the Regimental Campaign Plan—DP 3-12: 

“Execute Functional Training for ARFORGEN”—which 

will establish a forum and process for commanders to tell 

us what specific training you need to prepare for your

mission, when you need it, and how we can provide the 

necessary expertise at key events like mission rehearsal

exercises (MRXs).

Lead to Serve. Essayons!

September-December 2010
4 Engineer September-December 2010

Lead The Way 

Command Sergeant Major Robert J. Wells

United States Army Engineer School

 Building the Combat Outpost 

Principles of Patrolling

Thousands of years ago, a leader 

on some distant battlefield yelled 

in frustration, “Somebody better figure out how to bust into this fortress, or I swear to the gods that heads 

will roll!” And while everyone near the 

leader felt the fear crawl up to their 

soon-to-be-severed necks, two young Soldiers look at each other knowingly, and 

with a slight nod to each other stepped 

forward and yelled, “Sire, Let Us Try!” 

And so began the field of military engineering...or something like that. That leader came to the

realization that his Army needed Soldiers with the cunning 

and imagination combined with brute force and “ignoance” 

to defeat the machines of war. Whether it was breaching 

into a heavily fortified position or designing a fortress built 

to repel invaders, our roots to the military engineering 

profession have always been focused on figuring out how 

to either build something or how to blow it up. Not a lot 

has changed since those early years. The following is an 

attempt to imagine the thought process of yesterday’s engineer and apply it to today’s engineering using the principles 

of patrolling (Planning, Reconnaissance, Security, Control, 

and Common Sense) in building today’s version of the

castle—the combat outpost (COP).

Planning. I think it was a person named Murphy who 

said that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. 

Well, Mr. Murphy, you must be a civilian, because that’s 

why we have leaders in our formation. Our leaders and 

their staff develop a plan and disseminate the information to all their Soldiers so that they act as one unit. Everything in the plan must support the commander’s vision 

of where to array platforms, like COPs, to project combat 

power in the most efficient manner. It takes an engineer 

with imagination to visualize the battlefield and identify 

areas that best support offense, defense, and stability operations. Our geospatial engineers give us an excellent 

view of the battlefield with most of the data we need to 

give the commander several options when deciding where, 

and when, to build a COP. But it still takes someone to 

get out on the ground and verify the terrain to the commander’s plan.

Reconnaissance. A good recon verifies the design and layout and allows the 

engineer to make modifications that will 

best support the commander’s plan for a 

COP. Today’s recon not only verifies the 

physical terrain but also verifies the human dimension of the battlefield. Are 

we building a COP that straddles tribal 

boundaries? Are we building in a flood 

plain or a previously mined area? In addition to observation, cover and concealment, obstacles, key terrain, and avenues 

of approach (OCOKA), we have to consider area, structure, capabilities, organizations, people, and events (ASCOPE) 

when conducting a recon (see Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency, Appendix B). 

Then it’s time to move out and start building, once we’ve 

verified the plan.

Security. Pretty much self-explanatory, but it has huge 

implications for our maneuver brothers and sisters. Every 

consideration must be taken into account, from moving ourselves to the proposed COP in a secure manner, to the design and construction of the COP that will provide the best 

protection for its inhabitants. I personally think the most 

dangerous part of any mission is just getting to the objective. What are the engagement criteria (rules of engagement 

[ROE]) while moving to the objective? Are our battle drills 

detailed enough and rehearsed so that our unit can respond 

quickly to a fluid situation? What are the disengagement 

criteria? And once we get to the COP, what measures do we 

need to take to secure ourselves while we’re constructing 

the COP? What is the main threat to the Soldiers at the 

COP? Better yet, out of the seven forms of contact, which 

ones are most likely to be used by the enemy? Do we use 

sniper screens? What about the entry control point? The 

whole idea behind a COP is that it’s a secure place close to 

the civilian population that our maneuver brothers can use 

to launch continuous, 24-hour counterinsurgency (COIN) 

operations without having to go all the way back to a base 

camp to reset. It’s a castle in the countryside that demonstrates to the people that the government cares about its 

citizens and is willing to provide a secure and productive 

environment that will improve the quality of life. The castle 

was the precursor of today’s cities. A thousand years ago, 

people lived near the castle to either work on the construction of the castle or provide supplies to its inhabitants. It 

provided a secure area that fostered trade.

Construction ^

(Continued on page 33)
Chief Warrant Officer Five Robert K. Lamphear

Regimental Chief Warrant Officer 

Show The Way 

September-December 2010 Engineer 5

I

recently had an opportunity to attend the annual Maneuver Support 

Center of Excellence (MSCoE) Retention Awards Ceremony at the Pershing Community Center here on Fort 

Leonard Wood. What a great event! 

Many outstanding recruiters and career 

counselors were recognized for an array 

of accomplishments, including the Career 

Counselor and Retention Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) of the Year awards. 

As I looked around the room, I noticed 

that I was the only warrant officer in attendance. Now I must admit that being 

the only warrant officer at an event is 

not uncommon; however, being the only 

one at a retention awards ceremony got the rusty wheels

spinning in my head. What is the role of the Army warrant 

officer in the Commander’s Retention Program? Is there 

one? Or do we leave that to the NCOs and officers to handle 

once we pin on the warrant officer rank?

The more I thought about these questions, the more 

convinced I became that warrant officers can and should 

play a huge role in the Commander’s Retention Program. 

Many warrant officers were career counselors or recruiters as NCOs and certainly have retained the skills necessary to speak with and mentor young engineer Soldiers 

and NCOs on the virtues of staying in the Army. The good 

news is that warrant officers are playing an important—

although often a supporting—role in the success of the program. On a personal note, I reenlisted for six years back in 

1986, largely due to the influence of a “Quiet Professional,” 

CW4 Marvin Humble. 

For those of you serving as “Quiet Professionals,” keep 

up the good work. If you are not involved in the Commander’s Retention Program, get involved. Talk with your 

Soldiers about their career plans—not just once, but many 

times—over a period of time. Nothing says you care for 

Soldiers’ well-being more than giving your time to them. 

The retention rates across the Army are excellent, and 

here at Fort Leonard Wood, retention rates for all the major commands were more than 100 percent for the past fiscal year.

What’s ahead? The Army has lowered this year’s retention goals, and some Soldiers may not have the opportunity to reenlist. Be part of the process, and help

identify quality and technically competent Solders to

continue to serve in this great Army and 

Regiment. To quote Major General David Quantock, MSCoE and Fort Leonard 

Wood commanding general, “It is always 

about quality, and never about numbers.” 

Do your part to discover the quality Soldier the commanding general refers to 

and the Army needs.

On another note, engineer warrant officers continue to do great things across 

our Regiment. There’s a great article in 

the May–August 2010 Engineer Professional Bulletin titled “The Theater Engineer Construction Battalion: General 

Engineering in Support of the Warfighter” by LTC Adam S. Roth, outlining the

recent deployment of his unit as the theater construction 

battalion in Iraq. I was struck by the positive comments 

made by LTC Roth on the outstanding performance of his 

three construction warrant officers. The roles they played 

in the construction effort certainly contributed to the

success of the task force. This is huge, since the integration of Construction Engineering Technicians into vertical 

platoons is still in its infancy in some units. The success or 

failure of the engineer warrant officer program is in your 

hands. Keep up the great work. 

I’d also like to report an example of community service 

by engineer warrant officers. Recently, CW2 Ryan Ward 

and members of the 120A Warrant Officer Basic Course 

02-10 traveled on their own time to Jefferson City, the Missouri state capital and site of the Missouri Veteran’s Memorial, to provide some extra care to the state-maintained 

memorial as the class’s community project. 

There are literally hundreds of stories like this across 

our Army and Regiment. Thank you—you are making a 

difference!

Finally, just as the Army’s retention program is about 

quality versus quantity, so too is the Regiment’s warrant 

officer accessions mission. We are looking for outstanding 

NCOs who possess a sustained and demonstrated level 

of technical and leadership competency as supported by 

rater and senior rater comments on Noncommissioned 

Officer Evaluation Reports (NCOERs). For more information 

about how to become an engineer warrant officer, log on to 

the Army recruiting website at <http://www.usarec.army

.mil/hq/warrant>. 

Until next time, stay safe. Essayons!
September-December 2010 Engineer 7

general engineering operations in and around the water.” 

To accomplish the latter mission in Haiti, 544th divers performed many key tasks subsequently listed in the manual: 

hydrographic surveying, planning, inspecting, clearing, 

repairing, constructing, rehabilitating, and opening ports. 

Phases of Operation

Efforts of the 544th could be divided into three distinct phases during 10 weeks of Operation Unified 

Response. Phase I entailed making assessments of 

damage to several harbor facilities. Phase II included more 

complex assessments, as well as preparing the pier for rehabilitation, delegating tasks, and creating timelines. In Phase 

III, the Army divers worked jointly with United States Navy 

elements to repair the pier’s piles and thus rehabilitate the 

pier. Throughout all three phases, Army divers used a wide 

spectrum of surveying, salvage, and construction capabilities, while Navy divers brought specific knowledge about 

particular aspects of salvage and construction operations. 

The Army divers initially worked with the Navy’s Mobile 

Diving and Salvage Unit 2 (MDSU 2) and later with the 

Navy’s Underwater Construction Team 1 (UCT 1). 

Phase I: Level I Assessment

(18 to 23 January)

After taking on extra supplies at Guantanamo Bay on 

15 January, the USNS Grasp debarked for Port-au-Prince, 

arriving on the morning of 18 January. Everyone in the 

544th realized the seriousness of the situation after seeing a

Haitian corpse floating in the ocean about 10 miles from 

By Captain Scott Sann, Captain Jerry M. Hallman, and Dr. David J. Ulbrich

U.S. Navy photo

Amassive earthquake measuring 7.0 on the moment 

magnitude scale shook Port-au-Prince in Haiti on 

.12 January 2010. Physical damage and loss of life 

reached cataclysmic proportions, with at least 200,000 

Haitians dead, 250,000 injured, 500,000 homeless, and 

300,000 buildings destroyed or condemned. The quake also 

closed Baie de Port-au-Prince and ruined its main pier and 

quay, leaving large sections submerged or damaged and severely degrading the ability to offload desperately needed 

supplies (Figure 1, page 8).

On the same day, the United States Army 544th Engineer Dive Team was aboard the auxiliary rescue and salvage United States Naval Ship (USNS) Grasp (T-ARS-51) 

on a training exercise with Belizean and Guatemalan forces in South America. Shortly after the quake hit, United 

States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) diverted the 

USNS Grasp and the 544th to Port-au-Prince. Once there, 

the Army divers’ tasks were to assess the damage to harbor 

facilities and then attempt to reopen the port for incoming 

humanitarian relief. The 544th was the first dive element 

to arrive on the scene in Operation Unified Response—the 

U.S. military’s response to the earthquake. The unit came 

under the control of Combined Task Group 42.1, as part of 

Joint Task Force Haiti. This article tells the Army engineer 

divers’ story from 18 January to 31 March, and it analyzes 

the lessons learned from what would become one of the 

most ambitious dive operations in recent Army history.

In addition to helping assure mobility of troops and 

equipment, and according to Field Manual 3-34.280, Engineer Diving Operations, “Engineers provide support to 
8 Engineer September-December 2010

the harbor. It was then that Army divers realized they were 

the first responders to this natural disaster. 

Once anchored in the harbor, the 544th found no existing infrastructure and no command and control (C2) node. 

Without waiting for C2 to be established, the divers started 

conducting triage-style Level 1 Assessments of all affected port facilities. They made visual inspections and photographed the north quay wall and the south pier. They 

logged several hours of “bottom time”—time from when a 

diver leaves the surface of the water until he begins ascent 

back to the surface. Their inspections of the piles and bents 

supporting the southern pier revealed extensive damage. 

Concurrently with the Level 1 Assessment, they made hydrographic surveys to determine the harbor’s contour lines 

of depth (using sonar) and location (using the Global Positioning System [GPS]). 

MDSU 2 divers worked to locate submerged hazards 

north of the pier. Thereafter, the Navy’s fleet survey team 

marked off clear channels with buoys to aid that landing craft, utility/landing craft mechanized (LCU/LCM) in 

offloading of supplies—albeit in relatively small amounts—

directly onto the beach as part of joint logistics over-theshore (JLOTS) operations.

The 544th divers submitted their Level 1 Assessment 

to the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) 

engineer for analysis and guidance regarding subsequent 

activities. The 50-foot-wide by 1,000-foot-long north quay 

wall was damaged beyond repair, because so much of that 

wall crumbled or collapsed into the water. Although a 

400-foot-long span of the south pier completely disintegrated during the earthquake without possibility of reconstruction, the south pier’s 800-foot span remained standing 

and could be rehabilitated. No substantive repairs, however, could begin until salvage equipment and an underwater hydraulic tool package arrived from the 544th’s 

home post of Fort Eustis, Virginia.

Early in the morning of 20 January, the first of several 

setbacks occurred when a 6.1 tremor hit Port-au-Prince. 

This caused divers to postpone repairs to the southern pier

until the aftershock’s effects were known. The NAVFAC

engineer and the divers conducted a reassessment and found

that the tremor caused no significant damage. Meanwhile,

UCT 1 helped coordinate reception, staging, onward movement, and integration (RSOI) because additional equipment

and personnel arrived in the harbor every day. 

Phase II: Level 2 Assessment and Preparations

(24 to 30 January)

On 24 January, the completion of Combined Task Group 

42.1’s laydown area in the Port-au-Prince main terminal 

established a C2 node for the entire operation. Beginning 

that same day, Army divers made a Level 2 Assessment, 

which more comprehensively surveyed the structural integrity of the pier. They also consulted with the NAVFAC 

engineers on how best to strengthen the 800 feet of the 

south pier still above water. No less than 39 bents (each 

with 6 piles) needed either minor repairs or complete replacement. The pier was supported by several dozen bents 

reaching along the length of the pier to the harbor floor. 

Figure 1. Satellite image of Haiti’s Port-au-Prince harbor

Photo by Geoeye
Each of these bents consisted of 6 piles in a row across the 

width of the pier. The 2 outermost piles stood vertically 

at 90-degree angles, while the 4 inner piles alternated at 

steep angles (Figure 2). 

Throughout Phase II, divers from UCT 1 and the 544th 

painted marks on the top side of the south pier, identifying the degree of damage and the corresponding repairs. 

The Army divers then used hammers and chisels to clear 

marine life and loose materials from the south pier’s piles. 

Though tedious, cleaning all 234 piles (of the 39 bents) 

took several divers only 2 or 3 days. The preparatory work 

would ensure that pile caps could be added quickly when 

the Phase III started. 

On many days, the divers encountered a serious

problem—poor visibility, sometimes as low as 2 feet—due to 

the debris and filth in the water. Limited visibility was one 

of several environmental challenges for the 544th, who experienced some of the worst 

imaginable diving conditions 

in Port-au-Prince harbor. Petroleum floated on top of the 

water, and numerous marine 

hazards like jellyfish, human 

waste, and debris floated beneath the surface. Adding to 

the perilous conditions, crews 

on Haitian tugboats routinely 

discharged their septic tanks 

into the harbor. Brown clouds 

of refuse could be seen moving from the tugboats under 

the pier to where the Army 

and Navy divers were working. Making the situation more 

dangerous, the high water

temperatures caused heat casualties 

among the divers. 

Phase III: Repairs and Rehabilitation

(31 January and 27 March)

With the assessments and other 

shaping actions completed, the 544th 

spent part of 31 January resting and 

part of it determining the composition of dive teams, while prioritizing 

tasks to streamline work flow. Some 

piles retained partial structural contact with the pier above, and thus 

small gaps could be easily and quickly 

reinforced by filling them with grout 

spread by divers using hand trowels. 

However, most piles in most bents 

were sheared completely away from 

the pier above, requiring complete reconstruction to the upper portions of 

the piles (see photo below). Rehabilitation work on the

south pier began on 1 February and lasted for the next

7 weeks. A multistep process developed over time, in which 

the 17 Army and 7 Navy divers worked together closely

and effectively. 

Once repairs began, divers of the 544th, wearing wet 

suits and masks, drilled about a dozen vertical holes for the

2 outermost vertical piles and another dozen diagonal holes for the 4 inner piles on each bent. They drilled 

holes for 3 bents (18 piles) per day, so the entire drilling

operation took about 2 weeks. This exhausting task required 2 divers for each 45-pound hydraulic drill, alternating their drilling every few minutes into the pier above. 

Other divers in scuba gear remained nearby to retrieve any 

Divers found many severely damaged piles like this one.

U.S. Navy photo

September-December 2010 Engineer 9

Figure 2. Diagram of bent/piles before earthquake
dropped tools in the 20-foot-deep water, to assist if any accidents occurred, and to emplace friction clamps on which 

the divers stood while operating the drills. 

Once holes were drilled, another set of divers injected epoxy into the holes and inserted 6-gauge rebar, which extended downward and overlapped with the tops of the piles below. 

Next, the divers wrapped 3-gauge rebar horizontally around 

the vertical rebar to create a cage that would give strength 

to the pile once the concrete was poured. This step was completed in a few minutes for each pile. Last, a prefabricated 

wooden form was emplaced around each cage on the piles, 

and concrete was pumped into the form. After 24 hours, the 

concrete had sufficiently cured, connecting the new pile to 

the cap above. The wooden form could then be removed and 

used again on other piles and bents. The process of pumping 

the concrete was by far the most time-consuming, because it 

required half a workday for each bent.

Meanwhile, divers operating the drills moved on to the 

next bents and began the incremental process again—

as long as the equipment continued to function and the 

weather continued to be favorable. The 544th and UCT

1 divers continued drilling holes, emplacing rebar, attaching forms, pumping concrete, and removing forms for all 

the severely damaged bents. The last bent was completed 

on 24 March after about 7 weeks of work. At that time, 

NAVFAC engineers evaluated the structural strength 

of the south pier, and they determined its load capacity 

to be 500 pounds per square foot, as opposed to the preearthquake load capacity of 750 pounds per square foot. 

On 27 March, when the south pier was fully able to receive 

offloaded humanitarian supplies along its 800-foot span, 

the 544th Engineer Dive Team secured its equipment and 

departed for Fort Eustis.

Problems Faced—Solutions Found

As the 544th’s situation report for 9 February states, 

“Good rhythm [was] established on the dive side .be-

.tween UCT and Army crews; pace should start 

picking up now that concrete form templates have been established. Pile preparation continues ahead of schedule.”

(See photo, page 11.) However, good rhythm was maintained only as long as equipment functioned, weather cooperated, and the logistical system kept pace. The realities 

of the operational environment in Port-au-Prince harbor 

stretched the capabilities of the 544th Engineer Dive Team, 

UCT 1, and the crew on the USNS Grasp. 

With no infrastructure in Haiti, the 544th was left to 

maintain work timelines with only resources immediately 

onboard the USNS Grasp or what was transported in by 

the Army or Navy. The lag time for bringing supplies to 

Haiti stood as one of the most vexing challenges. To reduce 

bottlenecks, the 569th Engineer Dive Detachment Headquarters and the 6th Transportation Battalion S-4 at Fort 

Eustis allotted funds for unexpected expenses and tracked 

maintenance on equipment. The 569th and the 6th also 

shuttled supplies to Navy ports of debarkation and piggybacked on the Navy’s logistics system. UCT 1 controlled the 

flow of resources through the Navy’s tracking process and 

procurement path that ran from Florida, a shorter transit 

than from Fort Eustis. 

The 544th and UCT 1 required a constant influx of replacement equipment, spare parts, and other materials because of failures and malfunctions in the harsh conditions 

of Port-au-Prince harbor. No doctrine had been written to 

outline how to maintain continuous dive operations in this 

austere environment. For instance, when one hydraulic 

10 Engineer September-December 2010

This prefabricated wooden form was emplaced around a rebar cage at the top of damaged piles

to hold concrete until it cured. This created the pile caps reinforcing the structure.

U.S. Navy photo
drill broke down, its parts were cannibalized to keep another “Frankenstein” drill functioning. The 544th eventually 

used every hydraulic drill in the dive teams’ inventories at 

Fort Eustis. Other equipment also failed from wear or damage and needed to be replaced. Malfunctions or breakdowns 

frequently interrupted the entire rehabilitation process. 

They required stopgap solutions on-site, or delays until 

new equipment or additional spare parts could be procured 

from Guantanamo Bay or the continental United States. 

One of the stopgap solutions illustrated the flexibility 

and ingenuity of the 544th, UCT 1, and their support personnel. The hose filling the wooden forms with concreteaggregate mixture clogged on 15 February—only its second day in use. The dried and caked aggregate in the hose 

needed to be chipped away by hand, causing an unacceptable single point of failure. Either this chipping would slow 

progress for hours each day, or procuring a new hose would 

take several more days, and the clogs might reoccur. Neither option was practical. As a way of reducing the number and severity of clogs, it was decided that no aggregate 

would be added to the concrete; therefore, the hose did not 

clog anymore. This solution, according to the NAVFAC 

engineer, actually strengthened the pour, which stood at 

12,000 pounds per square inch for pure cement. The only 

downside to this solution was the subsequent requirement 

for more concrete to be ordered. Countless other on-site 

fixes demonstrated knowledge and expertise of the 544th, 

UCT 1, the NAVFAC engineers, and the carpenters and 

mechanics working in the staging area and on the USNS 

Grasp. They fabricated or cannibalized whatever was needed with material on hand until long-term solutions could

be realized. 

Apart from logistical challenges, numerous environmental problems frequently stalled progress. Every time it 

rained, the already filthy water became almost impossible 

to work in because refuse washed off 

the mainland into the harbor. Waste 

from tugboats and sewage from the 

mainland compounded ecological 

hazards. The only alternative for the 

Army and Navy divers came in initiating preventive measures—including 

constantly testing the water’s toxicity, monitoring divers’ vital statistics, 

and giving regular doses of antibiotics. No diver with an open wound was 

allowed in the water. Even with these 

precautions, one diver developed a 

rash and was sent to the hospital 

ship USNS Comfort for observation 

and treatment. Because these hazardous conditions made entering the 

water daily a mental challenge, the 

Army and Navy divers should be commended for making their dives without complaints, doing their duty, and 

completing the mission. 

Lessons Learned

Many lessons can be learned from the dive activities in Operation Unified Response. First, equipment breakage or extreme wear slowed the 544th 

Engineer Dive Team’s best efforts to rehabilitate the pier 

in Port-au-Prince harbor. In the future, Army dive units 

can avoid or minimize delays by maintaining severe redundancy of equipment and spare parts on the construction sites. In fact, having three or four extra pieces of 

“no-fail” equipment—the drills and the concrete-pumping 

equipment, in the case of Haiti—could be particularly critical to reducing lag times in waiting for fabrication, repair, 

or procurement. 

Second, whereas dive-qualified Navy corpsmen served 

in MDSU 2 and UCT 1, the 544th’s Army medic had neither completed the diving course at the Naval Diving Salvage and Training Center nor received certification as a 

dive medical technician (DMT). While competent in treatment techniques for land operations, that Army medic was 

not prepared for injuries or complications dealing with respiration or decompression that are unique to underwater 

operations. In these cases, the 544th needed to rely on the 

Navy’s medical assets. The Soldiers in the 544th thus realized that an Army dive team should add a qualified DMT to 

its table of organization and equipment (TOE). This would 

make specialized medical treatment intrinsic to an Army 

dive team and thereby increase the autonomous functionality of the team.

Third, the experiences in Haiti taught the Soldiers in 

the 544th that no Army or Navy dive unit can do everything independently in such a complicated operation. To 

improve effectiveness, joint training exercises between 

Army divers at Fort Eustis and Navy divers at Norfolk, 

Virginia, should extend long after Dive School and entail as 

September-December 2010 Engineer 11

Using a prefabricated wooden form, divers constructed pile caps to reinforce 

the connection between the piles and the pier.

U.S. Navy photo
wide a spectrum of operational scenarios as possible. Merchant Mariners should participate in these joint training 

exercises to facilitate better communication and coordination between divers and their shipboard support. Likewise, bureaucratic snags—such as the Navy divers not 

being authorized to use the Army’s Extreme Light Dive 

System—should be resolved in home ports by thoroughly 

cross-training and completely cross-certifying divers. Consequently, each Service’s divers would become more familiar with the other divers’ capabilities, equipment, and command structures. These actions would pay dividends in the 

future when natural disasters occur or humanitarian operations are undertaken. Joint dive operations would never 

again need to start at the zero-square as they did in Haiti. 

Increasing joint training exercises is not a recommendation offered only by the authors of this article; one Navy 

officer from MDSU 2 expressed the same desire to start 

scheduling Army–Navy dive exercises. 

Fourth, rehabilitating the pier in Haiti pointed to the 

significance of one of the Army divers’ key missions. Personnel need to be able to execute port opening and harbor 

clearance. It matters little if their deployment is in a combat operation or a humanitarian operation; either way, 

Army divers must be able to give commanders accurate 

surveys of what is beneath the water’s surface and make 

timely repairs to underwater structures. By maintaining 

proficiency in these mission-essential tasks, divers help 

assure mobility and enhance sustainment.

Last, from a rear-detachment commander’s perspective, 

communication and coordination posed the greatest challenges. Communication was extremely difficult at times 

and was best achieved via e-mail. However, using e-mail 

created as much as a full day of lag time in sending and 

receiving messages. Coordinating shipment of goods to 

earthquake-ravaged Haiti proved no easy task because of 

the complete lack of logistical infrastructure there. The 

U.S. military has initiatives in the disaster-response arena that are being designed to pull talent from across the 

armed services. Ensuring that Army engineer divers are 

integrated into these initiatives will be a key to success 

in future disaster-response missions using their diving

assets. 

Conclusion

Despite many setbacks, the 544th Engineer Dive 

Team achieved its goal of rehabilitating the 

south pier in Port-au-Prince harbor and opening it for large vessels offloading great quantities of aid 

into Haiti. Each of the seventeen divers in the 544th 

logged at least 350 hours of bottom time over their 

10-week deployment in Operation Unified Response. 

As tangible recognition for their efforts, the Soldiers 

received two Navy Commendation Medals, four Navy 

Achievement Medals, five Army Commendation Medals, and six Army Achievement Medals. Each member 

likewise received the Humanitarian Service Medal as 

part of Operation Unified Response. 

Captain Sann commanded the 544th Engineer Dive 

Team from December 2009 until its return from Haiti in 

April 2010. He has completed the Marine Engineer Dive Officer Course, the Sapper Leader Course, Airborne School, 

Air Assault School, and the Engineer Captains Career 

course. He holds a bachelor’s in integrative biology from the 

University of California in Berkeley.

Captain Hallman is the commanding officer of the 569th 

and 74th Engineer Dive Detachments at Joint Base LangleyEustis, Virginia. He has completed the Primary Leadership 

Development Course, the Basic Noncommissioned Officer 

Course, Engineer Officer Basic Course, Engineer Captains 

Career Course, Czech and Slovak Basic Courses at the Defense Language Institute, Basic Diving Officer Course, Salvage Diver Course, Construction Demolition Diver Course, 

Instructor Training Course, and the Systems Approach to 

Training Course. He holds a bachelor’s in business administration from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, 

and a master’s in geological engineering from the Missouri 

University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri.

Dr. Ulbrich is a historian at the United States Army Engineer School (USAES), Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. He 

received his doctorate in history at Temple University. Before assuming his duties at the Engineer School in 2009, Dr. 

Ulbrich served as codirector of the Cantigny First Division 

Oral History Project, which is Web-streamed by Ohio University at <http://media.library.ohiou.edu/cantigny/>.

Sources

544th Engineer Dive Team SITREPs, 15 January30 March 2010, Operation Unified Response, USAES History Office. 

Captain Scott Sann, Oral History Interview with David 

J. Ulbrich, 30 July 2010, USAES History Office.

First Lieutenant Tim O’Hara, “544th Engineer Dive 

Detachment,” Bottom Times: MOS 21D Newsletter, June 

2010: 10-11.

Field Manual 3-34.280, Engineer Diving Operations, 20 

December 2004.

Joe Gould, “Army Divers Work to Fix Haitian Ports,” 

Army Times, 2 March 2010, <http://www.armytimes.com

/news/2010/03/army_divers_030110w/>, accessed 10 

September 2010. 

Joint Publication 4-01.6, Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore 

(JLOTS), 5 August 2005.

Acknowledgments 

The authors wish to thank all civilian and uniformed 

personnel who provided assistance with research and preparation of this article. The SITREPS for the 544th Engineer 

Dive Team, an oral history interview with Captain Sann, 

and other archival materials are available at the USAES 

History Office at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

12 Engineer September-December 2010
September-December 2010 Engineer 13

By Lieutenant Colonel Todd M. Jacobus

Early in 2005, Iraq was preparing for the first of three 

elections. While Kurds in the north and Shiites in 

the south rejoiced at the opportunity to vote for the 

Iraqi National Assembly, the Sunnis of Anbar Province 

were not so positive. They saw this vote as the initial step 

toward their loss of influence. There was a robust insurgent presence in the province, estimated at 12,000 to 20,000 

strong. They based their campaign against the coalition in 

the urban areas of Ramadi, Haditha, Anah, and Al Qaim, 

and there was a consistent increase in the number of U.S. 

forces killed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

After supporting the 1st Marine Division (MarDiv) and 

11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) during the election 

in Najaf in January 2005, the 224th Engineer Battalion, 

Iowa Army National Guard, relocated to Ramadi to conduct a relief in place of the 2d Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, accepting responsibility for five convoy security escort teams. Augmented with a United States Marine Corps 

company, the battalion’s mission was to reduce the 70 percent success rate of IED attacks against coalition forces in 

Anbar. Route clearance, or mobility operations, would become the 224th’s main effort throughout the deployment.

The area of operation (AO) was about 

the size of North Carolina, including a 

200-mile road network that stretched 

from the western outskirts of Baghdad 

to the eastern borders at Jordan and 

Syria and a dozen cities of significant 

size. Many of the cities had a strong insurgent presence. The 224th had also replaced the 153d Engineer Battalion and 

immediately began receiving additional 

route clearance equipment. The situation in Anbar had gotten significantly 

worse over the previous four months, 

and IEDs were without question the preferred weapon of Al Qaeda. Upon transfer of authority, the 224th had only one 

route clearance team, headquartered in 

Habbaniyah, to counter the IED fight. 

But within six weeks, the unit had fielded two “visual” teams (which operated in 

rural areas) and two “mechanical” teams 

A Buffalo arm investigates an IED buried on the shoulder of a road. (which operated in urban areas).
14 Engineer September-December 2010

Using Engineer Resources

While there was a 400 percent increase in engineer 

equipment in Anbar between 2004 and 2005, 

there was an even more urgent and persistent 

need for these precious resources throughout Anbar Province during the deployment of the 224th. Initially, engineer 

resources were pushed to locations where IEDs were found 

more frequently. While this strategy allowed commanders 

who had suffered recent attacks to verify that routes in 

their areas of responsibility (AORs) were cleared, it was a 

reactionary strategy. It was the responsibility of engineers 

to design and recommend a strategy that would make the 

best use of their limited resources and capitalize on their 

capabilities. The battalion’s intelligence officer was an industrial engineer who managed a paper company in civilian life.1

 He considered the enemy’s tactics, analyzed the 

impact they had on coalition forces, and implemented a 

strategy based on his civilian Lean Six Sigma® training. 

He pulled from Multinational Corps–Iraq and 2d MarDiv 

databases all IED-related activities in the Multinational 

Forces–West (MNF–W) AO for analysis with the division 

and II Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) staffs. The aim 

was to determine where the enemy was having the most 

success with IEDs—which routes had the largest quantity, 

the most density, and the highest success rate against U.S. 

personnel and destroying U.S. equipment.

Route analysis of MNF–W provided the five most dangerous routes in Anbar Province:

■ Alternate Supply Route (ASR) Michigan (Ramadi to

Abu Ghurayb)

■ Main Supply Route (MSR) Mobile (Ramadi to Ar

Rutbah)

■ MSR Mobile (Ramadi to Abu Ghurayb)

■ ASR Tin (Haditha to Al Qaim)

■ ASR Uranium–MSR Mobile (Ramadi to Haditha) 

While it was important to maintain open lines of communication by clearing MSRs and ASRs, it was equally important in the fight against Al Qaeda to provide freedom of 

maneuver throughout MNF–W. Analysis of the same data 

determined which city had the most IEDs and land mines, 

which city had the highest density of IEDs and land mines, 

which city had the lowest IED “find” rate, and which city 

had the highest rate of insurgency success against U.S. 

forces and equipment through the use of IEDs and land 

mines. The answers to these questions led to recommendations to the 2d MarDiv on urban route clearance support. 

Not surprisingly, the most dangerous urban areas were Al 

Qaim, Ramadi, Fallujah, Haditha, and Hit. After identifying these hot spots, the same data helped determine where 

to focus U.S. engineer resources.

Anbar Province AORs

While route clearance recommendations were made 

to the 2d MarDiv operations, plans, and training 

(G-3) staff, the brigade and regimental command 

teams in MNF–W also requested 224th route clearance 

resources—known as Task Force Ironhawk—through the 

division G-3. The 2d MarDiv operated with three maneuver brigades, including the 2d Brigade Combat Team, 2d 

Infantry Division (Ramadi–AO Topeka); Regimental Combat Team 2 (Al Asad–AO Denver), and Regimental Combat Team 8 (Fallujah–AO Raleigh). In addition, the 155th 

Brigade Combat Team, Mississippi Army National Guard, 

attached to the II MEF, also was allowed to request Task 

A “mechanical” route clearance team operates on MSR Mobile in Anbar Province.
Force Ironhawk support throughout the MEF. Commanders of all these units asked for engineer support with great 

frequency. The 2d MarDiv commanding general made the 

final approval on who received which resources. 

Urban Route Clearance in Ramadi

The fight inside the city of Ramadi (AO Topeka) 

was the 2d MarDiv’s main effort and included the 

most intense insurgent activity in the province. Al 

Qaeda blended in with the local population and enjoyed 

freedom of maneuver throughout the city, resulting in the 

most challenging urban route clearance fight in recent history. While Task Force Ironhawk consistently operated 

in a number of cities, it had at least one route clearance 

team supporting AO Topeka at all times. As with Anbar 

Province as a whole, data on IED strikes were analyzed; it 

was determined whether routes would best be cleared by 

mechanical or visual means; and recommendations were 

made to the brigade on which routes should be cleared. The 

maneuver commanders could weigh in with their mission 

requirements that needed route clearance support, and 

sometimes their needs resulted in a change of mission for 

route clearance teams. All areas of the city were dangerous, 

but certain routes—such as the main thoroughfare across 

the city and several routes in central Ramadi—were covered routinely. As a rule, leaders tried to lock in plans several days in advance in order to provide plenty of time for

preparations.

A major problem was that with a population of approximately 500,000, Ramadi was a perfect destination for insurgents who were fortunate enough to get out of Fallujah alive. It was quite easy for them to blend in with the 

local population and continue their fight against the coalition through irregular warfare. Due to violence in the 

area, many factories closed, including the glass factory that 

was the largest employer in the province. As a result, the 

unemployment rate skyrocketed, and many young men 

were looking for ways to support their families. In 2005, 

members of Al Qaeda could maneuver throughout the city 

virtually at their discretion. Along with this freedom of maneuver came the opportunity to threaten, coerce, and influence the local populace and to emplace complex subsurface 

IEDs, with devastating effects. 

The tactical fight in Ramadi lacked the continuous kinetic nature that resulted in the demise of thousands of 

insurgents in Fallujah; this was a battle against an enemy 

with no face. U.S. combat engineers cleared the same routes 

each night to open up the lines of communication throughout the city in order to allow freedom of maneuver to Soldiers and Marines of the 2d BCT. This urban route clearance effort was incredibly frustrating for the engineers, 

since frequently they would clear a route and remove an 

IED, then proof the route a few hours later, only to find another IED in the same hole. While it was frustrating work, 

it was also necessary work; if the insurgents had the will 

to emplace IEDs, then the engineers needed to match that 

will with the effort to quickly locate and remove them. U.S. 

combat engineers performed magnificently at this task. 

Evolution of IED Initiation Systems

Technology played a significant role in the counterimprovised explosive device (C-IED) fight, and the 

division and battalion information management 

resources were integrally involved in the incorporation of 

frequency technology into the tactical fight. Initially, insurgents in Ramadi used command-detonated initiation 

systems, which used signals from key fobs, garage door 

openers, toy remote-control units, and two-way radios. Engineers counteracted this signal using IED countermeasure 

equipment that jammed the signals intended to detonate 

the device. As U.S. forces became more proficient at locating 

September-December 2010 Engineer 15 

A 224th Engineer 

Battalion officer 

gives a briefing at 

Fort Hood in 2004.
IEDs and preventing their detonation, the insurgents transitioned to using long-range cordless telephones, which had 

a much more powerful signal, to initiate detonations. U.S. 

forces countered by using a stronger jamming signal. The 

C-IED fight escalated and the insurgents transitioned to using pressure-activated and passive/active infrared initiating 

systems, which are as easily activated by innocent civilians 

as they are by coalition forces. This tactic began to telegraph 

to the local population the “win by all means, at all costs” 

philosophy of Al Qaeda, who explain away the injury and 

death of innocent civilians as “the will of God.” 

Going After the Emplacer

Targeting the IED itself was not resolving the bigger 

problem. To truly engage the problem at a higher 

level, it was necessary to get inside the decisionmaking process of the individuals who emplaced the IEDs. 

Specifically, answers were needed to three questions: 

■ Where was the enemy? 

■ When would he be there? 

■ How could he be attacked? 

Information from an existing database helped to locate 

the enemy and plot his locations on a map by using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software. It was a bit more challenging to determine when he would be at each location. 

Using another COTS system, the amount of time between 

attacks and finds at each location was calculated. The IED 

emplacers had a system: they located a place and time 

when they could safely drop off the components and set up 

an IED. Once the IED detonated, they would go back and 

reseed the same general location with another IED at the 

same time of day. Once the location and reseed time were 

16 Engineer September-December 2010

identified, it could be determined which areas were likely 

to be reseeded soon. This became part of the battalion’s information exchange with the maneuver commanders, who 

in turn pushed this data out to their respective task forces 

as actionable intelligence against which they could direct 

combat power. This engineer effort allowed the commanders to implement their skills and military art in taking out 

the IED emplacers, a mission that was accomplished with 

great success across Anbar Province—particularly in Ramadi—as 2005 progressed. Engineers who followed in the 

route clearance effort, including the 54th and 321st Engineer Battalions, built on this effort.

The enemy in Anbar Province was influenced by human 

nature, which meant that he found and frequented favorite 

spots to emplace IEDs. While some of these spots merited 

continuous clearance operations, others did not. The 244th 

had a tool to help it focus on where the enemy would be and 

when he would be there. Human nature led him back to 

locations where he’d had success, until he was either interdicted (which we controlled) or until he changed his mind 

(which he controlled). For an enemy that was hard to see, 

we had an opportunity to meet him by following him to his 

favorite locations, watching his patterns through collected 

data, and calculating when we would have our meeting. 

The C-IED fight was challenging, dangerous, and frustrating, but determined combat engineers—armed with the 

tools and intelligence of the battalion, brigade, and division 

staffs—succeeded in turning the trend established in October 2004, when 70 percent of IEDs were located when they 

successfully detonated on a vehicle. By December 2005, 

more than 70 percent of the IEDs in the province were

located by mechanical or visual means and only 30 percent were successful in engaging targets. While the commanding general’s objective was 

achieved, this was but the first 

step of a long campaign.

News of the 224th Engineer 

Battalion’s use of COTS software 

to analyze data from existing 

databases arrived at the Joint 

IED Defeat Task Force in midsummer 2005, and the task force 

commander visited the 224th in 

Ramadi. After participating in 

a route clearance mission there, 

using the battalion S-2’s projection tools and operating picture, 

he said that the S-2 section 

provided more real-time, usable, 

and actionable intelligence than 

any other S-2 section he had 

ever seen. An overview of the 

process was briefed for the staffs 

of the 101st Airborne and 3d 

Infantry Divisions, the 130th 

Engineer Brigade, and other

organizations. Leaders of the 1st and 2d Marine Divisions pose during their transfer of authority 

conference.

(Continued on page 19)
September-December 2010 Engineer 17

I

nformation technologies have permeated every echelon of today’s United States Army formations. This 

reality requires a persistent and reliable training 

methodology on which to build. In 2003, the Army established the concept of the Battle Command Training 

Center (BCTC). Today, more than thirty BCTCs have established training programs to meet the digital training 

needs of Army customers. These home station facilities

are organized to provide on-demand training via battle

command systems, simulations, virtual trainers, and gaming systems. 

Anyone who has ever participated in team sports understands the basic tenets of battle command training. Individual skills development and repetitive and specific situational drills comprise the foundation for success. Baseball 

is fundamentally a team sport, yet it relies on the skill and 

knowledge of individual players who work to sharpen specific fundamental skills—throwing, catching, fielding the ball, 

batting, and running. Players then train in team drills to 

develop an understanding of the game strategy, situational 

awareness, and precise knowledge of what to do when the 

ball is hit to them or to someone else; for example, when 

should they force? When should they tag? Collective drills, 

such as infield and outfield practice—as well as situational 

scrimmages—ensure teamwork based on solid individual 

player skills. Specificity and repetition are the keys to making those game-winning, split-second decisions. On game 

day, the team will be confident and ready to play their game.

Today’s battle command atmosphere within a digital 

tactical operations center (TOC) can be very much like 

baseball. A decision will be made in a split second, and 

execution of the play will decide the game. Decisions in 

battle have the same sort of split-second timing. Winning 

in battle saves lives and can change the course of history. 

The individual operators of battle command systems—such 

as Blue Force Tracker (BFT), Command Post of the Future 

(CPOF), and the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data 

System (AFATDS)—are the shortstop, second baseman, 

and first baseman. The TOC battle drills and unit staff processes/reporting are the team play expectations. Operators 

must train using specificity and repetition in responding to 

the ever-changing battle as directed by the TOC staff/team. 

By Mr. Joshua L. Hutchison

21st Century Battle Command

Training Is “Infield Practice”

Photo by CC Lopez

A brigade staff hones battle command systems skills and validates staff processes during a multiechelon CPX 

in the Fort Bragg BCTC Brigade RTOC.
18 Engineer September-December 2010

Operators possessing solid individual skills and TOC staffs/

teams must understand what to expect as “the ball is hit.” 

Battle command, just like baseball, is a collective effort in 

which winning happens often in the myriad of split-second 

“plays” executed by staffs who have honed their individual 

and team skills—which are only achieved through specific 

drills repeated frequently. 

The XVIII Airborne Corps BCTC system includes a hub 

at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and spokes at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Fort Drum, New York; Fort Polk, Louisiana; 

and Fort Stewart, Georgia. The center understands today’s 

battle command environment and has developed a homestation training solution to support individual Soldiers, 

teams, unit staffs, and commanders. The BCTC Training 

Program (BTP) provides a battle command training system that uses specificity and repetition to build a core of 

fundamental skills on which battle staffs can build their 

teams and “game strategy.” Staff teams have the opportunity to practice individual and collective tasks many times 

and with many different scenarios to learn how their splitsecond decisions affect the outcome of the “game” and how 

they win or lose battles based on their decisionmaking and 

their execution of “plays.” In this environment, staffs have 

the opportunity to see a scenario run in a number of situations and can apply their battle drills to suit the specific 

situation at hand, using the fundamentals they learned as 

they worked their way through progressive training levels 

at the BCTC. The BTP solution bridges the gap in battle 

command training that has long existed between unit set 

fielding (USF) at fielding and mission rehearsal exercises 

(MRXs) prior to deployment.

The BTP consists of two types of progressive battle command training: the foundation and command post exercise 

(CPX). This simplified approach is agile enough to rapidly 

incorporate new technologies and offers training solutions 

that are flexible and scalable enough to support any type of 

unit or mission. The BTP is battle command-focused and 

allows Soldiers, teams, TOC staffs, and commanders to 

sharpen and sustain their individual and collective digital 

skills—by tailoring the training program to their specific 

needs and then affording them the opportunity to practice 

those skills in a realistic “game environment” on a frequent 

basis. The Vice Chief of Staff of the Army has emphasized 

that a “focused approach to training” yields “unit agility 

and versatility”—and the BCTC executes this mandate. 

Building the foundation takes varying forms of training. 

Operator courses conducted in a classroom environment 

provide individual Soldiers competencies on current battle 

command capabilities. The TOC Staff Workshop may be 

likened to “TOC 101”: Conducted in a reconfigurable tactical operations center (RTOC) environment, it is collective 

training that consists of fundamental digital staff/team 

skills and competencies. Small-unit gaming is collective 

training for platoons and below to practice specific tactics 

and mission rehearsals.

A CPX builds on the foundation. Through these progressive and iterative training events, the elements 

are afforded the opportunity to train within the Army’s

A platoon element executes small-unit and convoy tactics training in the Fort Bragg BCTC gaming facility.

Photo by CC Lopez
long-established crawl-walk-run methodology. This is 

when “infield practice” occurs as staffs/teams work through 

standard battle drills, staff processes, and knowledge 

management practices. These tailored training events may 

be single or multiple echelons and are supported by the 

BCTC’s unique set of training enabler capabilities, including the Joint Land Component Constructive Training Capability (JLCCTC), Battle Command Staff Trainer (BCST), 

and virtual and gaming systems—such as HUMINT (human intelligence) Control Cell (HCC) and Virtual Battlespace System 2 (VBS2TM). An example of a highly integrated multiple echelon CPX may include a brigade TOC, 

several battalion TOCs, and several company command 

posts/company intelligence support teams (CoIST) executing their mission with a full complement of battle command 

technologies to provide communications and situational 

awareness—as well as a platoon or squad performing missions within a VBS2 scenario. These CPX solutions serve 

to guarantee success of staffs and teams in their culminating training event (CTE) and ultimately in their downrange mission.

The Army’s evolving battle command training requirements are no different than the age-old individual and collective common task training (CTT)—the shortstop needs 

to know how to field the ball and what play to make, and 

the team must know what to expect. The BTP developed at 

the Fort Bragg BCTC provides the training solutions necessary to bridge the current gap in battle command training and serve as the home station nucleus of the Army’s 

current live, virtual, constructive, and gaming (LVCG) and 

future integrated training environment (ITE) initiatives. 

BCTCs are poised to continue leading the way as the Army 

faces the daunting task of delivering relevant and realistic training for its ever-expanding “digital tool kit” in the

21st century.

It is “game time,” the final phase of an operation: Two of 

three objectives have been achieved; the enemy is neutralized, and remaining threats are in retreat; a size, activity, 

location, and time (SALT) report on a possible vehicle-borne 

improvised explosive device (VBIED) is received via BFT; 

and this is a commander’s critical intelligence requirement 

(CCIR). What does the operator do, and how does he do it? 

What is the battle drill, and how does the staff execute it? 

With fundamentals learned through specificity and repetition at a home station BCTC, the team will make the splitsecond decision, complete the play, and win.

Mr. Hutchison is the Chief of Collective Training at the 

Battle Command Training Center, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He is an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran and served 

eleven years in the United States Army. He holds a bachelor’s in management from Park University. 

More information about the XVIII Airborne Corps BCTC 

training program may be found at Army Knowledge Online 

(AKO), <http://bit.ly/BCTC-on-AKO>, and by visiting the 

BCTC on Facebook and Twitter.

September-December 2010 Engineer 19

Contributions of the Engineer Regiment

Much has been written about the transition of the 

people of Anbar Province from active support for 

the insurgency in late 2004 and 2005, to neutrality, to eventual support for the coalition. The insurgency 

was more focused on reinforcing anarchy and disrupting security and stability than it was concerned with the welfare 

of the people; certainly this contributed to its demise in the 

province. There were many factors contributing to the success of U.S. forces in this part of Iraq. One key was the investment of 4,000 combat troops during the surge, since it 

provided commanders with options and flexibility and demonstrated commitment to the citizens. Much of the credit 

goes to the sheiks, imams, and local mayors, who led the 

Sunni Awakening movement at great risk to themselves. 

In addition, it took the exhaustive efforts of the II MEF and 

its ground combat element, the 2d MarDiv, to endure what 

amounted to an economy-of-force strategy in the province 

during the violent years of 2005–2006.

On 1 September 2008, the commander of U.S. forces 

in Anbar Province formally handed control to the people, 

an event that symbolized the greatest defeat of Al Qaeda 

since the Taliban had been initially dislodged in Afghanistan. The Engineer Regiment’s leaders, noncommissioned 

officers, and Soldiers played a critical role in the tactical 

fight that set the conditions for slow but steady progress, 

resulting in a secure and stable environment in the province. The Regiment used initiative, flexibility, and ingenuity to provide the commanders with freedom of maneuver 

in their AOs in an environment of persistent unrest. It 

should come as no surprise that the C-IED fight in Anbar 

Province was executed with all three components of the 

Engineer Regiment: the 224th is an Army National Guard 

battalion, the 54th is an Active Army battalion, and the 

321st is a United States Army Reserve battalion. It’s an 

honor to serve.

Lieutenant Colonel Jacobus was a United States Army 

War College Senior Service Fellow at the Fletcher School of 

Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University when this article 

was written. He is currently the officer in charge of the Iowa 

National Guard Installation Component. He has served as 

Commander, Iowa Army National Guard Recruiting and 

Retention Battalion, and Commander, 224th Engineer Battalion, Iowa Army National Guard, including a deployment 

to support Operation Iraqi Freedom, where the 224th served 

as the divisional engineer battalion for the First, then the 

Second, Marine Division. He holds a bachelor’s from the 

University of Iowa and a master’s in public administration 

from Drake University.

(“Counter-IED,” continued from page 16)
20 Engineer September-December 2010

Deploying Reserve Component (RC) headquarters 

receive postmobilization battle command staff 

training (BCST), executed by the 75th Battle 

Command Training Division (75th BCTD) and hosted by a 

training support brigade (TSB). The exercise director, the 

TSB commander, is the validating authority. For most deploying RC engineer commands, the 3d Battle Command 

Training Brigade (3d BCTB) provides this training, and 

the 181st TSB at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, is the validating 

authority. 

The 3d BCTB trains other types of units as well as engineer battalion and brigade headquarters. On one mission, 

they may train a mayoral cell, followed by an infantry brigade combat team, then followed by an engineer brigade. 

It takes a wide skill set to train this variety of units. The 

brigade has no explicit concentration of military occupational specialties (MOSs), since several or all are needed for 

most units trained. Battle command tasks are universal to 

any battalion or brigade, but when training engineers, 3d 

BCTB is always looking for more MOS 21 series Soldiers. 

With that in mind, high-quality, mission-focused training 

is always afforded every unit that the brigade is tasked 

with preparing for deployment. 

All postmobilization battle command training is a team 

effort. The most important member of that team is the engineer headquarters—the deploying expeditionary force 

(DEF) unit. The early participation of the engineer unit’s 

commander and staff is essential to shape an effective, 

well-aimed exercise. Besides the 3d BCTB, essential members of the team include the TSB, the unit in-theater that is 

being replaced, and potentially additional members of the 

engineer community. 

Battle Command

“Battle command is the art and science of understanding, visualizing, describing, directing, 

leading, and assessing forces to impose the commander’s will on a hostile, thinking, and adaptive enemy. 

Battle command applies leadership to translate decisions 

into actions—by synchronizing forces and warfighting functions in time, space, and purpose—to accomplish missions. 

Battle command is guided by professional judgment gained 

from experience, knowledge, education, intelligence, and intuition. It is driven by commanders.”1

“The operations process consists of the major command 

and control activities performed during operations: planning, preparing, executing, and continuously assessing 

the operation. The commander drives the operations process. Battle command is at the center of the Operations

Process.”2

Commanders and staffs use the military decisionmaking process (MDMP) and troop-leading procedures to 

integrate activities during planning. They also use other 

processes and activities to synchronize operations and 

achieve mission success.

Key to Mission Success

The commander of the 181st TSB served as the exercise director of multiple engineer brigade missions 

executed by the 75th. His training goal when executing BCST is to ensure that members of the DEF unit 

have a solid understanding of their mission and how they 

nest into their higher headquarters. He believes that it is 

a continuation of preparation for the transfer of authority 

(TOA), and he wants them to walk into the relief in place 

(RIP) knowing their knowledge gaps and what questions 

need answers. He also wants them to come to grips now 

with the specific issues they will face in-theater.

BCST often presents the first time that the full staff of 

officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) are able to 

work together doing their daily, tactical jobs in an integrated fashion with all of the staff sections. Many RC engineer 

units—and route clearance units in particular—arrive at 

the mobilization site with limited training experience in 

their new form as a modular force. For example, although 

the unit may have previous combat experience as a construction force, it may be mobilized for a route clearance 

mission with subordinate units that are not part of their 

home-station chain of command. 

One example of the benefits derived by client units was 

given by the executive officer of the 724th Engineer Battalion, Wisconsin Army National Guard. He observed that 

the command post exercise (CPX) was critical to the growth 

of his staff. Prior to the experience, they were planning 

for deployment—but during the CPX, they transitioned 

to their tactical mission, which made the training highly

beneficial. 

By Lieutenant Colonel Ted S. Weaver and Major Patrick J. Farrell
May-August 2010 September-December 2010 Engineer 37 Engineer 21

The 3d BCTB timeline from receipt of mission to execution of the first event is typically 150 days. After the 3d 

BCTB conducts its own MDMP, the project officer contacts 

the TSB. Collaborative planning ensues between 3d BCTB, 

the TSB, and the DEF unit. Three essential elements that 

the team must agree to at the outset are the “Road to War” 

timeline, the exercise line of effort (LOE) framework, and a 

3d BCTB seat on the leader’s recon.

The timeline puts the key scenario development players in sync. One of the early events is the mission event 

list (MEL) development conference, at which the DEF unit 

provides input for the BCST scenario. Questions that are 

asked are—

■ What are the unit’s LOEs? 

■ What are the unit’s battle drills? 

■ What are the commander’s training objectives (CTOs)? 

■ What are some specific issues/events that they want 

injected into the scenarios? 

Answers to these questions become the mission’s LOE 

framework, which guides the writing of the MEL—the series of messages, role playing, and taskers that are delivered to the engineer headquarters during the exercise. The 

commander of the 181st sees this LOE framework as the 

centerpiece of any exercise: a “vital diagram” that defines 

how the unit fits into the higher headquarters plan. Since 

some LOEs are not easy to understand—for example, supporting governance—this creates dialogue with the unit

in-theater. 

Forming a Positive Relationship

The DEF units are pulled in many directions when 

preparing for deployment. From a distance, the 

postmobilization mission rehearsal exercise (MRX) 

is just one more of those tasks—and the DEF unit often 

misses the MEL development conference mentioned above. 

The 3d BCTB project officer and TSB will make a preliminary assessment of the DEF unit’s mission, based on research, and develop a suggested LOE framework and CTOs 

for discussion. 

The commander of the 724th Engineer Battalion said 

that the support received before a 75th Division exercise 

demonstrated a commitment to professionalism: The 75th’s 

project officer wanted to work the CTOs into the exercise, 

which suggested a major recurring theme for a successful 

exercise—positive relationships. He was also the project officer for eight engineer battalions at Fort McCoy in 2009 

and 2010. He keeps in contact with every unit once it deploys and ensures that each one is assisting the unit it will 

conduct RIP/TOA with at deployment’s end. Additionally, 

he looks a year out, building relationships with units projected to mobilize for deployment.

During the 150 days prior to the engineer brigade mission, the 3d BCTB project officer (a lieutenant colonel) is in 

weekly contact with the DEF unit. His point of contact is 

usually the brigade’s chief of staff or executive officer. For 

battalion missions, the timeline is shorter, and the point of 

contact is normally the engineer battalion commander or 

executive officer. The discussions often focus on—

A construction management and survey team works with an Iraqi role player through a translator to clarify

requirements for a police station design.
■ Updating training objectives to reflect changes in

mission.

■ Assessing the state of staff training, level of Army Battle Command System training (ABCS), and general

expectation management.

The leader’s recon to visit the unit in-theater is a key 

event in the preparation for the MRX. It is imperative for 

the 3d BCTB to have an officer on this event, which allows the 3d BCTB trainers the time needed to fully understand the mission and challenges that the DEF unit will 

face. This is the mission realism keystone for the model 

of training that 3d BCTB develops. It enables a meaningful scenario and realistic role playing of higher, adjacent, 

lower, supporting, and support (HALSS) units. Perhaps 

even more important than raw data collection during the 

leader’s recon is that relationships are created with both 

the DEF unit and the unit in-theater. 

The need for relationship-building here is impossible 

to overemphasize—the unit in-theater is the most credible source of relevant data for the realistic theater model 

of training. A steady stream of this data is needed during 

scenario development. A surge of this information provides 

additional realism during the exercise—often with only 

hours to acquire it. Without established relationships, the 

accessible raw data is often without context—and requests 

for information (RFI) will go unanswered or may be delayed beyond the latest time of value to the detriment of 

the training. The degree of mission success goes back to the 

human factor—solid, personal relationships.

This slow turnaround on exercise RFIs is consistently 

the greatest source of frustration for the DEF unit. Some 

types of required information are—

■ Battle update briefs. 

■ Intelligence summaries (INTSUMS). 

■ Current operations orders (OPORDs). 

■ Fragmentary orders (FRAGOs). 

■ Operational graphics. 

■ Mission tracking tools. 

■ Unit status reports.

■ Daily situation reports (SITREPS). 

For an engineer brigade, the typical sequence of postmobilization BCST events is three days of MDMP training, followed by two 3-day CPXs and an 8-day MRX. The 

battalion sequence is similar; however, a training support 

battalion will execute a mission rehearsal exercise (MRE). 

Battalions normally deploy with their subordinate companies, and the MRE incorporates the companies’ boots-onthe-ground training mission into the BCST exercise. 

MDMP Training—Not a Slide Show

When the war began, 3d BCTB taught MDMP to deploying units in a traditional classroom with 100 

PowerPoint slides and a practical exercise based 

on a National Training Center scenario. This was an adequate model at the time. DEF units arrived at the mobilization station with poor MDMP skills, and this crawl method 

filled the training gap. For several years now, most units 

arrive at the mobilization site having basic MDMP skills. 

They only need a controlled environment, and 3d BCTB’s 

MDMP course coaches them to keep on track through their 

preparation for deployment.

One method used to train MDMP ensures that the DEF 

unit does a classified MDMP event on their theater higher 

unit’s OPORD and strengthens the staff’s natural roles. 

The DEF unit produces a straw man order of their own. As 

the DEF unit transitions through the seven steps of MDMP,

either the 3d BCTB MDMP facilitator or the DEF unit’s 

chief of staff will give a short PowerPoint-based instruction 

for that step as a refresher. Since the chief of staff/executive officer is responsible for conducting staff training3

 and 

is their natural leader, it makes the most sense for the engineer staff to see him driving the process. The facilitator 

provides the tools: the PowerPoint instructions to introduce 

each new step in the MDMP process, a suggested timeline, 

doctrinal references, and hints as necessary.

The straw man order is based on both facts and assumptions and will need amendments when the unit gets into 

theater, but it is supposed to be the 75 percent solution. 

It also forces the engineer staff sections to develop their 

running estimates, lengthen the list of RFIs, and understand the fundamental baseline of their mission. In the 

process, the unit’s ability to conduct MDMP is considerably sharpened, while the natural roles within the staff are

strengthened. 

The chief of staff for the 16th Engineer Brigade was 

pleased with this method of MDMP training, the success 

of which he attributed to having the 3d BCTB MDMP team 

and the senior mentor with them every step of the way.

Mission-Focused Staff Integration

The basic pattern for the CPX and MRX is the same. 

Messages come into the command post in a variety 

of ways—e-mail, instant messaging over the classified “closed-loop” network, Secure Voice Over Internet 

Protocol (SVoIP) telephone, live role players, or frequencymodulated (FM) radio. Yet another method is over the 

Command Post of the Future (CPOF). Battalions use Blue 

Force Tracker during their CPX and MRE. As the battle 

staff is working these issues, reacting to battle drills, exercising their standing operating procedures, and receiving and submitting reports, the higher headquarters sends 

down major taskers relating to missions that the unit is 

expected to execute when deployed. These taskers may 

require additional analysis through MDMP. Units brief 

their products to role-played VIPs—often division and 

corps staff. Simultaneously, there are competing mobilization requirements. These may include new equipment 

fielding, crew-served weapons makeup, central issuing

facility issue, medical issues, equipment moving to theater, departure of advance party Soldiers, and genuine 

22 Engineer September-December 2010
Uniform Code of Military 

Justice (UCMJ) actions. 

Although units often say 

these distracters are artificial, these same sorts of issues compete for attention 

in-theater. 

The assistant chief 

of staff, signal (G-6) for 

the 416th Theater Engineer Command changed 

his mind on this when he 

served in Afghanistan as 

the chief of staff for the 

420th Engineer Brigade. 

They experienced heightened activity and had 10 

percent of Soldiers on leave 

and the headquarters split 

between two locations. 

The MRX helped them get 

ready.

The main differences 

between the CPX and MRX 

are the goals and intensity. 

The goals of the CPX are for 

the staff to identify their roles and responsibilities, set up 

a functioning command post, establish processes for information analysis and dissemination, establish their battle 

rhythm, validate battle drills, and gain situational awareness by posting relevant information to their common operational picture—for example, battle tracking. These are 

parallel with opportunities to continue their MDMP training and practice briefing skills. 

By the start of the MRX, the basic skills learned in the 

CPX are in place, and they are polished for eight more 

days. In addition, the intensity of the exercise increases 

with more frequent and complex scenario “injects” from the 

HALSS role players. Key leader engagements and visits 

with real local national role players challenge and enhance 

the commander and staff’s preparation for their mission 

downrange. 

During the MRX, the TSB trains the brigade commander’s personal security detachment (PSD). A series of field 

events are injected into the exercise. There are multiple 

opportunities for the brigade design engineer technical section (G-7) to conduct quality control/assurance, recons, surveys, and other engineering tasks outside the wire. These 

missions provide the opportunity to use the PSD for escort. 

PSD training includes reacting to numerous attacks and 

a debriefing with the intelligence staff officer (G-2) upon 

return. This information becomes part of the G-2’s intelligence picture.

For the primary staff officers, the value of the training is 

obvious in the quality of the products, increased efficiencies 

developed, and improved briefing skills by the end of the 

MRX. However, throughout this entire process, whole lists 

of skills are also being sharpened by the enlisted Soldiers, 

battle staff NCOs, and junior officers, as they develop an 

effective command post. 

Among the most important skills developed is their ability and confidence with Army Battle Command Systems 

and CPOF. The experience is stressful, but necessary, and 

Soldiers react positively.

Observer-Controller/Trainers

From the MDMP through the end of the MRX, 

3d BCTB and First Army TSBs position observercontroller/trainers (OC/Ts) with each staff section. 

During the exercise, the OC/Ts do not evaluate as much as 

they provide feedback based on a combination of Army Doctrine and the Combined Arms Training Strategy (CATS). 

These three to five tasks (per staff section) are agreed on 

with the DEF unit in advance. The 3d BCTB believes that 

a positive relationship between the OC/T and the staff section enhances the training. 

In addition, 3d BCTB also uses a tool developed by 

the former commander of the 4th Cavalry TSB, when he 

worked on training engineers along with the 3d BCTB early in this present conflict. He called his method of evaluation staff assessment standards. In essence, he condensed 

the doctrine in FM 3-0, FM 5-0, and FM 6-0 into five main 

areas—time management, staff estimates, common operational picture, information analysis and dissemination, 

and generating relevant options. If a staff can perform well 

in these five critical areas, they will work efficiently: “Each 

of the five categories relies on staff integration for the section 

to be efficient. The staff must understand how their section 

September-December 2010 Engineer 23

Soldiers conduct a shift change brief during a command post exercise at Fort McCoy, 

Wisconsin.
affects other sections, and they must understand the purpose and audience of running estimates. The staff must be 

integrated and have a mutual view of the battlefield and 

the commander’s desired end state to achieve the desired effect; without integration, the staff will lack clarity and unity

of effort.”4

There are multiple opportunities for self-discovery within the staff. Every evening the OC/Ts conduct an informal 

after action review (AAR) with their staff section, focusing 

on one or two areas to improve for the next day. The CPX 

ends with AARs conducted by the 3d BCTB mobile training team chief, and the MRX concludes with an AAR conducted by the TSB commander. The AARs focus on CTOs, 

what needs fixing, and who is going to fix it. The facilitators strive to maximize the DEF unit’s participation and

self-discovery. 

Challenges

Battle command tasks are common to any field unit, 

and 3d BCTB can provide BCST under any circumstances. DEF units, however, want a high degree 

of realism. A challenge for 3d BCTB is having enough engineer officers (with specific theater experience) for all the 

requirements of an exercise. Three or four engineer OC/Ts 

are enough to cover down on the engineer brigade’s design 

engineer technical section (G-7) and operations staff section 

(G-3). That is usually all that the 3d BCTB has available. 

Unfortunately, that often does not leave many engineertrained role players who often have to answer technical 

RFIs for the HALSS cell. 

Having a 3d BCTB Soldier on the leader’s recon is essential in developing a realistic exercise baseline for the 

role players. Relationships made on the leader’s recon result in prompt turnaround of RFIs. Subject matter experts 

sent back by the deployed engineer unit (while it is still 

in-theater) to facilitate the BCST have a huge impact on 

realism, including expediting accurate answers to RFIs. 

In reality, this provides a 30-day jump start to the RIP/

TOA process.

The 3d BCTB project officer started contacting units 

(scheduled or expecting to be scheduled for the next rotation) and requested that they send Soldiers forward to observe their predecessors’ BCST events. Not only did they 

learn about the CPX and MRX, but they became an asset 

for the OC/Ts and HALSS. 

The project officer of the 176th Engineer Brigade mission received three members of an engineer battalion 

command group to role-play themselves in the HALSS 

during the exercise. It does not get any more real than 

that. There is a substantial payoff to any unit that participates. They are training themselves and mastering their 

higher headquarters’ standing operating procedure at 

the same time. One further resource is sending the DEF 

unit’s liaison officers to participate. These engineer officers can work in the HALSS, acting in their real liaison 

officer function as well as providing an engineer flavor to 

the role playing. 

Conclusion

Creating a BCST event for a deploying engineer unit 

takes months of preparation and continuous coordination between different entities. The 3d BCTB, 

along with two TSBs, has trained nine engineer brigades 

and most of their subordinate battalions in the past five 

years. Together they have developed an effective model of 

BCST and have fostered relationships within the engineer 

community. The essential exercise ingredients boil down 

to theater realism with recent and relevant classified data 

and an engineer unit (using staff integration) working on 

the same issues they will encounter in-theater. Fostering 

positive relationships between the DEF unit, 3d BCTB, 

the TSB, the unit in-theater, and the engineer community 

at large is key to the success of the BCST and the unit’s 

deployment. 

Lieutenant Colonel Weaver is a field artillery officer who 

is currently mobilized and serving in the 3d BCTB, 75th 

BCTD, Fort Sheridan, Illinois. He was the project officer 

of both the 420th Engineer Brigade and the 41st Infantry 

Brigade Combat Team missions. He has executed key roles 

on ten other brigade and battalion MRXs and was the commander of Service Battery 1/121 Field Artillery, and the 

S-4, 7th Brigade, 84th Division. As a civilian, he teaches 

high school chemistry in Racine, Wisconsin. He holds a 

bachelor’s in secondary education broad field science from 

the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and a master’s in 

curriculum and instruction from National Louis University, Evanston, Illinois.

Major Farrell is an engineer officer serving as an OC/T 

with 2d Battle Command Training Group, 3d BCTB, 75th 

BCTD, in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. During that time, he has 

participated in multiple roles, including project officer, 

HALSS engineer subject matter expert, and OC/T for five 

engineer brigade BCSTs and five engineer battalion BCSTs 

as a mobilized Reserve Soldier. Previously, he was the S-3, 

company commander, a battle captain, and S-1 with the 

244th Engineer Battalion in Denver, Colorado. He holds 

a bachelor’s in civil and environmental engineering from 

Cornell University and owns Castle Engineering Solutions, 

LLC, a forensic structural engineering consulting firm. 

He is a licensed professional engineer in Wisconsin and

Colorado.

Endnotes

1

Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations, 27 February 2008, 

p. 5-2.

2

FM 5-0, The Operations Process, 26 March 2010, p. vi.

3

FM 6-0, Mission Command: Command and Control of 

Army Forces, 11 August 2003, Appendix D-9.

4

Jeffrey R. Sanderson, “4th Cavalry Brigade Staff Assessment Standards,” Armor & Cavalry Journal, May–

June 2008, p.16.

24 Engineer September-December 2010
September-December 2010 Engineer 25

I

n 2007, the United States Army Reserve completed its 

transformation to modularity. The impact on the Engineer Regiment was immediate. Companies, detachments, platoons, and even squads were now organized to 

serve as elements of a tailored force package, designed to 

complete a specific mission or task, rather than deploy with 

an organic engineer battalion. The direct impact on the 

engineer battalion headquarters was also instantaneous, 

eliminating the headquarters support company with its 

200 or more Soldiers, and developing two separate support companies that together formed the battalion headquarters element. The battalion headquarters became a 

headquarters and headquarters company (HHC), designed 

to support the staff sections, and a forward support company (FSC), intended to conduct the sustainment functions 

needed to sustain an engineer battalion. In many battalion 

headquarters, the HHC quickly came into its own and began serving as the “staff company,” but the best employment of the FSC proved more elusive, and it has often been 

underutilized. It is the intent of this article to provide information on how an FSC is designed to work for an engineer 

battalion and how it worked for the 844th Engineer Battalion during the unit’s recent deployment to Baghdad, Iraq, 

supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

Unlike any other company in the Regiment, the FSC 

is purely logistical, manned entirely by Quartermaster, 

Transportation, and Ordnance Branch Soldiers. In a modular engineer battalion, the FSC is responsible for providing 

food service, haul and transportation, Class III supplies, 

water distribution, and maintenance and recovery support. 

It is worth mentioning that not all FSCs are the same, and 

an FSC supporting an aviation or armor battalion looks 

slightly different from the FSC supporting an engineer battalion. This is linked to the overall intent of modularity, 

which places the right mix of sustainment elements into 

a battalion headquarters and attempts to eliminate the 

misallocation of sustainment assets and personnel. Furthermore, due to the logistical nature of engineering tasks, 

an FSC has a unique relationship with the battalion supply officer (S-4), who is a chief customer of the unit. The 

S-4 often serves as the materiel manager for much of the 

By Captain David L. Brewer

A truck driver from the FSC provides security while his 

platoon changes a tire on an M870 semitrailer.
26 Engineer September-December 2010

supplies transported by the FSC and relies heavily on the 

FSC for the requisition and use of Class IX repair parts.

Theater Factors and Flexibility

I

n a nonpermissive environment such as Iraq, the FSC 

supporting an engineer battalion must be extremely 

versatile to achieve its overall mission of providing logistical support to the battalion headquarters and the modular engineer elements attached to it. The force mix for a 

modular engineer battalion can vary drastically, depending 

on the battalion’s mission in-theater. During the 844th’s 

deployment to Iraq, the battalion consisted of one survey 

design detachment, two horizontal companies, one vertical company, one bridge company, and one United States 

Air Force field engineer team (FET). The force structure 

therefore dictated the requirements of the FSC. For instance, the haul and transportation requirements for moving two horizontal companies were more than the FSC was 

designed to support, so adjustments were made internally 

at the company to fulfill this requirement. In addition, the 

maintenance support requirements were affected by the 

force structure, resulting in the maintenance platoon being 

organized into field maintenance teams that were able to 

support organic movements, fulfill emergency work orders, 

and complete scheduled services simultaneously.

A major factor determining which sustainment functions an FSC provides in-theater and how those functions 

are carried out is the location of the battalion. Located at 

Camp Striker on the Victory Base Complex in Baghdad, 

the 844th benefited from the massive dining facility, large 

Class III supply point, and water treatment facility on the 

base. Access to these facilities impacted the FSC’s mission 

and allowed the company to task-organize itself in a way 

different from the standard set by the unit’s modified table 

of organization and equipment (MTOE). Due to a lack of 

a food service support requirement on Victory Base Complex, the company was able to cross-train the majority of 

the company’s field feeding section into a convoy security 

element to support the transportation operations of the distribution platoon. The same was done for the organic petroleum specialists and water treatment specialists assigned 

to that platoon. This allowed the company to provide its 

own security for the haul section and manage its own organic convoys, thus meeting the haul support requirements 

for moving two horizontal companies throughout the theater of operation. On occasion, the company also pulled Soldiers from its headquarters and maintenance platoons to 

support time-sensitive transportation operations, making 

it possible for the unit to support multiple movements simultaneously. This flexible use of company assets enabled 

the FSC to complete a variety of missions in Iraq and support a 1,000-Soldier engineer task force.

In addition to the location of the battalion, the equipment allocated to the FSC in-theater determines what 

sort of mission sets can be completed. The FSC’s theaterprovided equipment in Baghdad was significantly different from the MTOE equipment used at home station. The 

primary example of this was the equipment designated for 

the company’s haul section. According to the MTOE, the 

main mover for the haul section is the heavy expandedmobility tactical truck (HEMTT) with a palletized loading 

system. In Iraq, however, the company was only provided 

An FSC Soldier services an M916 light equipment transporter at Camp Striker, Iraq.
one HEMTT for palletized loading and another equipped 

with the older load handling system. The equipment used 

most by the haul section in Iraq was the M916 light equipment transporter with the M870 low-bed semitrailer. The 

M916 and M870 combination was an essential transportation asset and could be used to haul both Class III and 

Class IV supplies effectively. Nevertheless, the shift from 

MTOE to theater-provided equipment forced the FSC to 

retrain the haul section’s Soldiers on the M916 and M870 

rather than operate the equipment it was familiar with 

at home station. Luckily, FSC leaders were aware of the 

equipment shift before mobilization, so the unit’s premobilization training focused on adapting to it. This allowed the 

company to become combat effective quickly once it arrived 

in-theater.

Perhaps the most important aspect determining the 

FSC’s role in-theater is the battalion’s mission. During its 

deployment, the 844th’s primary mission was to support 

the responsible drawdown of forces as the corps construction engineer battalion. The mission required subordinate 

companies, platoons, and detachments to operate in all 

three U.S. divisional areas of responsibility in 14 of 18 Iraqi 

provinces. The battalion’s subordinate engineer elements 

did everything from building staging yards for transporting supplies out of country to removing bridges that were 

no longer being used. Therefore, as the principal sustainment unit in the battalion, the FSC was required to provide 

simultaneous support to the multiple engineer elements 

operating in disparate locations throughout Iraq. Performing sustainment functions virtually everywhere at once 

forced the company to remain flexible. In addition to the 

September-December 2010 Engineer 27

mission requirement of operating in a massive operational 

environment, the battalion and the FSC had to deal with 

movement restrictions imposed by the government of Iraq. 

These restrictions varied throughout the country and sometimes required unit convoys to move in conjunction with 

Iraqi Security Forces. Under these conditions, sustainment 

requirements often changed, and change became a way of 

life. Therefore, the FSC established the principle of being 

“actively reactive,” which meant that the company anticipated possible changes and did whatever was possible to 

plan for likely contingencies. By building flexible plans and 

remaining actively reactive, the company succeeded in providing adequate logistical support throughout the theater 

of operation. However, versatility is not the only prerequisite for being a successful sustainment element in-theater. 

Additional Best Practices

Along with being flexible, it is extremely important 

for an FSC to establish strong lines of communi-

.cation with the modular elements within the battalion. During the 844th’s deployment, the FSC conducted 

70 organic missions and supported more than 60 missions 

with its available haul and transportation assets. The company also conducted numerous missions within the Victory 

Base Complex, moving Class III, Class IV, and Class IX 

equipment for multiple units. To coordinate these missions, 

the FSC designed a haul request form for units requesting 

transportation support. Units were able to request available assets directly from the FSC, which then notified the 

battalion plans and operations (S-3) section of the planned 

configuration of the company’s transportation assets for 

An FSC security team positions its gun trucks during a halt on a main supply route.
the next seven to ten days. The S-3 approved the allocation 

of transportation assets or, on special occasions, reprioritized requests based on battalion requirements. The direct 

lines of communication between the FSC and the modular 

engineer companies resulted in increased throughput and 

better velocity management of battalion transportation 

assets. A similar system was established for requesting 

maintenance and welding work orders, using the Standard 

Army Maintenance System–Enhanced, and resulted in the 

delivery of efficient maintenance support within the battalion headquarters and to the subordinate elements.

The most essential lesson learned by the FSC, 844th 

Engineer Battalion, from its time in-theater was the importance of fostering a positive vendor-customer relationship with subordinate units supported by the battalion. 

Tracking what each company was doing at any given time 

was an essential tactic for finding opportunities to support 

the battalion, while determining the best methods to do so. 

This also allowed the FSC to forecast future support requirements of the subordinate units. For example, if a company or platoon was moving from one location to another 

after completing a project, the opportunity existed to provide transportation assets to move the element and provide 

maintenance support while the element reset for a followon mission. Being proactive and finding these opportunities was only half the fight. The FSC also had to provide 

efficient and effective support on the modular company’s 

terms and timeline. Most of the time this was as simple as 

staying in contact with the different companies throughout 

the stages of their projects and selling ideas where the FSC 

could help provide assistance, freeing up engineer assets 

to complete more projects. This often led to unique missions, such as providing meals at a jobsite, but it built a 

reputation for the FSC that would in turn create additional

opportunities.

Summary

By remaining versatile, maintaining lines of communication, and providing great customer service, the 

FSC, 844th Engineer Battalion, built a solid reputation while in Iraq. The company became the premiere 

support element within the battalion and was called on 

to do everything from supporting the operational environment owner with welding wire mitigation kits for the mineresistant, ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles to running 

combat logistics patrols with Special Forces. The company 

even supported the battalion’s Iraqi Army partnership efforts by providing food service and maintenance training to 

the Iraqi soldiers. During the unit’s ten months in-theater, 

it hauled more than 500 loads, serviced more than 20 joint 

security stations and contingency operating bases throughout Iraq, and completed more than 400 maintenance work 

orders and 1,000 technical inspections during 10,000 manhours—all while maintaining a rigorous service program 

that contributed to the battalion’s 90 percent or better operational readiness rating. The example of this company 

was affected by the battalion’s force structure, location in 

Iraq, mission, and the company’s positive approach to providing sustainment support. No FSC will have a completely 

similar experience. However, the FSC did exactly what it 

was designed to do—support the engineer battalion and the 

modular companies by serving as a logistical lifeline, allowing engineers to do what they do best: build. 

Captain Brewer is the commander of Forward Support Company, 844th Engineer Battalion, in Knoxville, Tennessee. He 

has served as the battalion’s engineer plans officer and as commander of the 739th Engineer Company (Multirole Bridge) in 

Granite City, Illinois. He holds a bachelor’s from the University 

of Missouri–St. Louis and is a graduate of the Engineer Officer Basic Course. 

The FSC distribution platoon 

loads construction materials 

for base support missions 

throughout Iraq.

 28 Engineer September-December 2010
Quality Verification

of Contractor Work in Iraq

September-December 2010 Engineer 29

As part of civil-military operations in Iraq, United 

States Army engineers perform quality verification 

.(QV) of contractor work in areas that may not be 

fully secure or are exposed to insurgents. Rebuilding projects are targets because restoration of normal life works 

against the terrorists’ goals. In the densely populated section of Baghdad known as Sadr City, terrorists in 2008 

had been stopped from openly attacking or sabotaging civil 

works projects but still emplaced improvised explosive 

devices (IEDs), used snipers, and intimidated the civilian 

population. 

QV is needed to assure the owners that a contract is being fulfilled and that they are getting what was paid for. It 

is the process the government uses to check on work being 

performed, determining that progress is satisfactory and 

will result in a completely functional product in the time 

allowed by the contract. Part of the mission of the 729th 

Facility Engineer Detachment (FED) during its deployment 

was to support Task Force Gold in Sadr City, assessing the 

progress of Iraqi contractors on jobs paid for by the Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) and the 

Iraqi CERP. The security situation was too unsettled to allow a daily presence. There were active threats from IEDs, 

indirect fire, and snipers. Movement in the area required 

a patrol in mine-resistant, ambush-protected (MRAP)

vehicles to move as close as possible to each work site. Once 

on-site, teams acted as quickly as possible to assess progress 

and then move out. To reduce danger, regularly scheduled 

visits and prior notification of contractors were avoided.

The Iraq counterinsurgency strategy in use in 2008 was 

“Clear, Hold, and Build,” and Task Force Gold was established to help in the “Build” part of the plan. Part of the 

work involved actual construction, while another part included mentoring the local government in the care of its 

public sector responsibilities. Task Force Gold operated on 

the terrain of 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, part of the 

Multinational Division–Baghdad, with an engineer commander and a mixed civil affairs and engineer staff. Some 

of its operations were service projects involving cleanup 

and debris removal, but a growing number of projects involved construction—renovating schools, reconstructing 

public health clinics, building public spaces such as parks 

and sports fields, repairing infrastructure such as sewers 

and water pumping stations, and providing generators for 

local power needs.

QV operations were accomplished by sending out teams 

of two to four engineer Soldiers as part of a civil affairs 

patrol or on a QV-specific mission with a security team 

to secure a work site while it was evaluated. All movements in Sadr City involved several vehicles and a sizable

By Captain Gregory D. Moon

Quality Verification

of Contractor Work in Iraq

Photo by First Lieutenant George Holland
30 Engineer September-December 2010

number of Soldiers. The objectives for a typical patrol consisted of checking six to eight projects that required a team 

to dismount and three or four projects that could be evaluated while mounted. Such missions took three to four hours 

from assembly to return to base. The return to base did 

not finish work for the day though. QV 

teams had to prepare reports for each 

project and a daily summary for 4th 

Infantry Division—and eventually 

Multinational Force—headquarters. 

These reports usually took five to six 

hours and another hour was spent 

in a daily briefing to the task force

commander.

Project Selection

The civil affairs teams nominated projects, and a project 

engineer prepared project 

packages that were submitted to the 

brigade and division for staffing and 

funding. Once contractors were notified and work was started, the QV 

work began. Funded projects were 

listed in order of the start work and 

estimated completion dates. Missiondependent considerations also helped 

prioritize the inspections. 

Coordination between the QV team and security detachment was an important planning consideration. When QV 

teams from the 729th FED were conducting inspections 

for Task Force Gold, the security detachment was not stationed at the same location as the task force. That meant 

Soldiers enter the public clinic for inspection of local contractor work.

Using a digital camera, a member of the inspection team records a starting 

picture.

Photo by First Lieutenant George Holland

Photo by First Lieutenant George Holland
that coordination for the daily project list was performed 

in three steps. First, projects for the upcoming week were 

selected at the task force. Then that list went to the leader 

of the security detachment, who used available intelligence 

about the area to generate a schedule for each day that 

would avoid predictable patterns of travel. Finally, the 

schedule went to the QV team.

QV teams prepared for patrols by reviewing the package 

for each project to be visited that day. The aim was to know 

what work was required for each project, observe what was 

being accomplished, note key items from the scope of work, 

and verify the presence of high-value items such as generators, air conditioning units, and other large equipment. 

The security detachment confirmed current intelligence 

and changes in project priorities, then gave the QV team 

the sequence of sites to be visited. The entire patrol got the 

patrol order for the day and rehearsed dismount, assembly, 

movement to the work site, and actions at the site. Once 

this was accomplished, the patrol loaded up and moved out.

Inspection Process

The basic QV team was two Soldiers and an interpreter. One Soldier was designated the photographer, 

and the other accompanied the interpreter. The 

photographer took pictures that identified the site, showing 

its overall condition, illustrating problem areas and good 

work, and recording high-value items and high-value parts 

of the job. The team member with the interpreter started 

with a quick interview with the job superintendent or the 

most knowledgeable person on-site. Basic points confirmed 

that the team had the right place, the number of workers 

who were on-site, what the contractor was doing that day, 

whether high-value material was on hand, and if it had 

been installed. Next, the interviewer walked the site to observe overall progress and, if time and conditions allowed, 

make on-the-spot notes about the project. Then it was on 

to the next site on the day’s list. The security team usually 

cleared each site. Since the U.S. government was paying for 

the work, the teams didn’t kick down doors to enter locked 

rooms. If the contractor wasn’t on-site and the team could 

not gain access to a room, it was noted. Occasionally, the 

teams suspected the presence of insurgents, in which case 

the site visit was halted.

The practical reason for using at least two Soldiers on 

the QV team was to speed up the process. Leaving the cameraman free to move around and take pictures made efficient use of limited time on-site. However, a camera leads 

to tunnel vision. The Soldier acting as the interviewerrecorder got a wider view of the site and generally was the 

leader of the assessment. Index cards with the name of the 

project were photographed at the beginning of a site visit, 

then used to record notes about the work. 

After returning to the security station at the end of patrols, teams performed maintenance and worked on project 

reports. The 729th FED teams organized site visit pictures 

into computer files that kept each day’s projects together. 

Project folders also kept together all reports on individual 

projects. Once photographs were downloaded, report documents could be prepared. Information management authorities should note that this information must be moved 

onto the local network, so blocking portable data storage 

devices from network access stops the reporting process.

Project Reports

The initial general project report template didn’t fit 

the information gathered by the teams, so later 

reports were based on each project’s line items of 

work. Using the line items from contract packages yielded 

a breakdown with a quantity or dollar amount attached to 

each item. This allowed QV teams to estimate the percentage of the work completed. Since information for the project 

reports is collected quickly, it is short on details. If there 

are specific items of command interest, QV teams should be 

notified before site visits. 

Project reports contain several types of information:

■ Confirmation that work is or is not being performed.

■ Estimates of the amount of work accomplished to date.

■ Estimates of the quality of work.

■ Predictions of whether or not the contractor will

complete the project within the contract time. 

Each evening, individual project reports and an executive summary were sent to headquarters and an update 

was presented to the task force commander. QV teams also 

assisted project officers with pay requests from contractors 

and talked with contractors about quantity and quality of 

work at specific sites. 

Equipment Needed

The QV teams need several pieces of equipment,

including—

■ Digital camera. A high-quality digital single-lens reflex 

camera with high-speed storage cards and a fast lens

takes pictures quickly and with sufficient quality to be

September-December 2010 Engineer 31

“[Quality verification] ... is the process the government 

uses to check on work being performed, determining that 

progress is satisfactory and will result in a completely 

functional product in the time allowed by the contract.”
used for other purposes, such as information operations. Point-and-shoot cameras process pictures more

slowly, thus slowing down site visits.

■ Digital voice recorder. This would allow immediate 

and accurate recording of comments and questions about 

the work at each site. However, notebooks and note

cards are also useful for writing and memory aids and

may even offer some advantages. For example, if the 

order of visits changes, note cards can be rearranged and

kept in order. 

■ Computer. The QV team needs access to a computer 

hooked up to the local network to allow photos to be 

downloaded from portable storage. Because the reporting process takes a lot of time, a computer dedicated to that effort is necessary. Ideally, the work should 

be done on nonsecure computers, because the data has

to be shared not only with U.S. forces but also with local

contractors.

Planning Factors

Mission, enemy, troops available, terrain, and time 

available (METT-T) analysis works well to devel-

.op planning factors for QV. 

■ Mission. The description of the type of projects to be

checked is important. Typical missions are relatively 

small in scope and total cost. Larger projects require a 

secure environment to be executed successfully. Depending on the phase of a project, even relatively 

modest ones can require a lot of time to check. For

example, the final inspection of a school renovation

requires more time and effort than the initial

checks. Commanders should be aware of the types

and number of projects being checked. 

■ Enemy. Local contractors won’t work if there is an active threat facing them. Given that the risk to contractors is low enough for them to work, some threats may 

still exist. During the 729th’s deployment, IEDs were a 

possible danger during movement to the work site, 

while at the site, and while moving away from the site. 

Indirect fire and snipers were also a consideration. 

Avoiding predictable patterns of movement and not 

scheduling meetings with the local contractors ahead of 

time reduced the danger from terrorists. 

■ Troops available. Experienced QV teams can do their

jobs quicker, and their estimates will be quantitatively and qualitatively better. The security element

32 Engineer September-December 2010

Soldiers move through the Al Yarmouk School.

Photo by First Lieutenant George Holland
must be large enough to clear and secure sites for the 

duration of visits. The security element averaged 20

Soldiers on 729th FED missions. An interpreter is

necessary in most cases. 

■ Terrain. The farther projects are from the base of operations, and the farther they are from each other, the 

fewer that can be inspected in a given time. In a relatively compact area such as Sadr City, projects may be within an area of five or six square miles. In other cases,

projects may be scattered all across a province. 

■ Time available. Project reports impact time-on-task 

on a daily basis. The more in-depth and detailed the 

reports required by headquarters, the more time they 

take to generate. If reports are modified to reflect specific project requirements, the reports become easier to 

complete. Commanders should tailor their specific information requirements so that the QV teams

can get on-site, collect the information, and depart—

minimizing the number of trips to the site. 

Potential QV Team Members

Engineer NCOs in construction engineering supervisor military occupational specialties and company 

grade engineer officers have the background to get 

a good start as QV team members. Experience in supervising unit construction projects is a good place to sharpen 

the ability to assess work. Another way of gaining useful 

experience is to check contractor work. Officers and NCOs 

can gain this by helping the Directorate of Public Works at 

their home station to perform QV work. Another avenue for 

September-December 2010 Engineer 33

officers and NCOs to explore is to establish a relationship 

with the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) 

to work on projects at or near their home stations. A good 

class to introduce the basics of QV is “Quality Verification 

for General Construction,” available through the USACE 

Proponent-Sponsored Engineer Corps Training (PROSPECT) program. 

These recommendations are necessary because of the 

lack of experience of many Soldiers in-theater. They were 

enthusiastic but had not been allowed to do much practical construction work. This was apparent in the way they 

handled their tools and equipment and in some of their 

judgments. This lack of experience also affected command 

decisions about which units to employ. United States Air 

Force and United States Navy construction units were preferred for performing construction jobs. They were more effective because they had practiced their specialties more 

than their Army counterparts. Building Great Engineers 

starts with Soldiers performing their specialties at home 

and taking that experience into theater.

Captain Moon was commissioned through the Reserve 

Officer Training Corps at Auburn University with a bachelor’s in civil engineering. He served for ten years on active duty and for seven years in the United States Army 

Reserves. He enlisted as a staff sergeant construction engineering supervisor in 2002 and was mobilized to Iraq in 

2008. He applied for and received reappointment as a captain in 2009 and continues as a member of the 729th FED. 

He works for the Federal Aviation Administration as a civil 

engineer.

Control. Traditionally, this addresses the importance 

of controlling the movement of the unit while you move 

from one place to another and the actions of the unit on the 

objective. In this case, I think a leader should consider the 

management of the construction phases of the COP. Each 

COP should provide the basics of protection, health, and 

safety for the engineer; it starts from the ground up. There 

are lots of project management tools to help the engineer, 

but it takes someone on the ground to organize the construction effort to meet the commander’s objectives.

Common Sense. An overused term nowadays is expectation management, but it does have applications in this 

case. The engineer cannot pour all of the precious construction resources of the brigade into one platoon-size COP. The 

commander and his engineer must clearly define the basic 

standards for security, functionality, and life support. It’s 

up to the engineer to take a commonsense approach and 

ensure that the life support standards of construction aren’t 

compromised just because a subordinate commander truly 

wants a castle for his COP. Remind leaders of the old saying of “improving your fighting position” but within reason. 

Tell them to stay away from those pieces of construction 

that will get a Soldier seriously injured or killed, such as 

electrical work. Leave it for the experts, the engineer.

Combat, construction, and geospatial engineers are all 

involved in the process of building a COP. The Regiment 

expects you to be an expert in your field and recognize that 

it’s essential for today’s engineer to embrace the three disciplines of engineering to solve the commander’s most difficult problems. It’s not rocket science, but it is a matter of 

physics. Whether it’s building something or blowing stuff 

up, it’s the brave Soldiers who have embraced their profession who step forward to say, “Let Us Try, Sir!” 

Or you can stand in line and watch the heads roll... .

(“Lead the Way,” continued from page 4)
34 Engineer September-December 2010

The deployment rhythm for a typical engineer construction unit has had a negative effect on the 

quality and length of training in these units. The 

emphasis on quality commercial construction has declined 

in these units while the type of “hurry-up-and-build-it” 

projects typically found in combat zones has increased. 

The construction tasks in the Soldier Training Publications (STPs) are not being taught and evaluated to the 

standard of commercial construction, leaving Soldiers 

inexperienced except for the brief overview they receive 

in advanced individual training (AIT). Even AIT does not 

teach all of the tasks in the STPs. Some of these construction tasks require the Soldier to learn at the unit. Construction units in today’s Army need a solid set of guidelines—similar to the standardized method used by most 

combat engineer units—to train and evaluate their subordinate units. 

Proposed New Tables

The concept of combat engineer qualification tables 

can be used in conjunction with the construction 

tasks established in the individual military occupational specialty (MOS) STPs to form new construction engineer qualification tables. The construction tables would 

have a biannual schedule that provides construction MOS 

Soldiers a refresher on AIT-taught tasks and teaches actual unit-specified tasks that are in the STP. This schedule 

would also ensure that companies have a mandated time 

to train their Soldiers on construction STPs. This proposed schedule and the construction tables are a method 

the construction battalions can integrate into their training calendars, giving a solid set of guidelines to assess the

companies. 

Table I. Construction tasks can be divided into three 

different engineer tables and should be taught using the 

crawl-walk-run method. Table I, in the crawl phase, begins 

with individual companies teaching Soldiers straight from 

the field manuals (FMs) and STPs in a classroom-type environment, where most of the learning is done by reading 

the FMs and applying the lessons in a practical exercise. 

Outside agencies can help during this phase as well. The 

92d Engineer Battalion invited representatives from several organizations to Fort Stewart, Georgia, to teach its 

Soldiers. These organizations included AutoCAD®, EMC 

Engineering Services Incorporated, the United States 

Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Directorate of Public Works (DPW), Hilti Corporation, and Stihl® Incorporated. All of them can have a part in the one-month block of 

instruction for Table I, but units must plan thoroughly to 

integrate these resources into training. 

By Captain Jacob R. Kondo
September-December 2010 Engineer 35

This means that the MOSs of greatest benefit to Soldiers need to be assigned to the class. For example, the 

92d sent its company executive officers and drafters to the 

AutoCAD class, construction supervisors to the EMC and 

USACE internships, and skill level one and two Soldiers to 

the construction tools and equipment licensing classes presented by Hilti Corporation and Stihl Incorporated. All of 

this outside training should be within the one-month time 

frame and synchronized with each company’s classroom 

training. Once the companies have completed their internal evaluation of Table I, they can request an evaluation 

from the battalion. The evaluation will consist of a written 

test based on the guidelines established in the STPs. Once 

all Soldiers pass the written test, the unit can proceed to 

the walk phase, or Table II.

Table II. Table II consists of small “battalion-owned” 

projects that the companies must complete and inspect before moving on to the next table. Battalion-owned means 

that the projects are constructed for the battalion and no 

other outside unit or agency. This approach ensures that 

the Soldiers remain in a focused learning environment. The 

companies begin with the design phase of the project when 

the company construction officer and the platoon leader develop a design and a bill of materials (BOM) based on the 

scope of work derived from the subject areas of the STP. 

For example, if a vertical company has reached the walk

phase, then its individual project must include a scope of 

work that encompasses all subject areas for electricians, 

plumbers, carpenters, and masons. The project should be 

very basic and not become a permanent structure. Examples of projects allowed for this phase would be wood

footing-supported maintenance sheds constructed by a vertical company and equipment operator training for a horizontal company.

Once the company has designs and an initial BOM, the 

project packet should be submitted to the battalion, which 

will evaluate and critique the packet and allow the company to move on to the construction portion of this phase. 

When the project packet is approved, the company will 

order, track, inventory, and store its BOM. When construction begins, the company will inspect and evaluate 

individual Soldiers through quality control (QC) personnel, using the same evaluation criteria as the STPs. The 

battalion will use the completed evaluation to track the 

project and coordinate with DPW to inspect it with QC 

personnel. The 92d Engineer Battalion has employed 

these QC steps successfully and found that DPW has been 

very willing to provide additional training to our Soldiers. 

As the QC personnel evaluate Soldiers and their individual tasks, the battalion will evaluate the company QC personnel and how they inspect the job sites. The battalion 

will also use the evaluation criteria found in the STPs for 

the construction engineering supervisor (MOS 21H) and 

construction equipment supervisor (MOS 21N). As quality 

assurance inspectors, the battalion also inspects the company projects. This allows the battalion to oversee evaluations by the QC personnel and also evaluate the overall 

company command and control of the project. After the 

construction portion of this phase is complete, the project will undergo prefinal and final inspections and typical 

close-out procedures by the companies while the battalion 

is evaluating.

Military surveyors 

receive a class on soil 

analysis during Table I 

training.
Table III. Table III, the run phase, is the culminating training event in which companies will design and 

construct their own capstone project. The project will be 

larger than the Table II project and will have an outside 

agency as the customer. Since there is an actual customer, 

all initial designs and project packets will be synchronized with the battalion and the company. Once the project packet is complete, it will be sent to the customer for 

approval. Due to the typical six-month waiting time that 

DPW and the Directorate of Contracting require for all 

projects, the project packet must be submitted during the 

first phase. This will require the battalion-level construction officer to do all initial planning and coordination with 

the customer at the start. Once the company reaches the 

third table, then in-progress reviews between battalion 

and company will begin and the company will plan the 

actual project packet.

Timeline

The timeline for this type of training is spread 

throughout the year. The training will be biannual, 

with the first qualification tables starting in Month 

One and ending in Month Six. Table I will take place at the 

beginning of the course and will typically take a month to 

complete. This leaves five months to complete the small and 

capstone projects during Tables II and III. Performance of 

Table II will determine if Table III can actually be accomplished. If the company’s Soldiers are ahead of schedule 

during Table II and appear to be retaining their STP skills, 

then the battalion may allow the company to continue on 

to Table III once Table II is complete. On the other hand, if 

the Soldiers are falling behind and not retaining their STP 

skills, Table III can be cancelled and Table II extended to 

the end of the six-month period. Once that period is up, the 

36 Engineer September-December 2010

A Soldier uses a D7 bulldozer to push-load a scraper.

Soldiers from the 92d Engineer Battalion lay the first course of a concrete masonry unit wall.
company can start over and begin the second iteration of 

Tables I through III. This will allow for all the Soldier and 

leader transitions during that six-month period.

Potential Challenges

The most significant uncertainty for this proposal is 

how well it will match up with units’ training calendars. Each unit must compare and synchronize its 

long-range training calendar and balance out its construction tasks with common Soldier tasks. Another challenge 

may arise if the customer approval process for the capstone 

project starts in Month One, which will leave little flexibility in the timeline in case a company does not pass the battalion evaluations for each table. In that case, a company 

could delay its capstone project (Table III) and use that 

time slot to continue working on Table II. The only coordination needed for this postponement would be to inform the 

outside agency sponsoring the capstone project.

Another consideration is the budget, time schedule, and 

agenda of the DPW or other outside agency. DPW’s budget 

and time schedule may conflict with the battalion’s training 

calendar. Past projects have shown that the time between 

the planning and construction phases varies widely due to 

the unpredictable processes that all BOM and project approval requests must undergo. Since there is no definite 

timeline for these processes, it will be difficult for the battalion to define the training timeline for the projects and to 

synchronize DPW’s calendar with its own. To prevent lost 

training time, all BOM and project approval requests will 

be approved three months before any construction begins 

(Table III). These approvals from DPW will be one of the 

decision points that will determine if the companies will 

reach Table III. This will eliminate any undefined variations in the timeline between the planning process and the 

construction phase. Having the project approved and the 

BOM awarded before the construction phase will allow the 

companies to create a more accurate critical path method and synchronize that timeline between DPW and the

battalion.

Conclusion

The little training time most construction units have 

between deployments is valuable and should be used 

to its fullest potential. Simply assigning construction projects to subordinate units does not teach Soldiers 

the fundamentals of construction. That is why there should 

be a redundant teaching system that starts with the fundamentals of construction. Soldiers start with the basics and 

learn straight from the STPs and FMs. Once Soldiers pass 

the first table, they will use what they have learned and 

apply it first to a small-scale project and eventually to their 

capstone project. This article proposes to overlap lessons 

that teach Soldiers their individual construction tasks because redundancy is the best way to reinforce training. The 

overlap also helps train new Soldiers and newly promoted 

noncommissioned officers (NCOs). Soldiers and NCOs who 

might have missed a previous table will be accounted for 

during the next six-month training cycle. This proposal is 

one way the Engineer Regiment can ensure that construction units are properly trained on basic skill sets and can 

execute projects in a variety of circumstances.

Captain Kondo is the 92d Engineer Battalion construction officer. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and holds a bachelor’s in civil 

engineering.

The author would like to thank Lieutenant Colonel Diana M. Holland and Major James Schultze for their help 

and support in writing this article. 

September-December 2010 Engineer 37

Carpenters train on their skill level one tasks.
38 Engineer September-December 2010 May-August 2010

By Mr. Christopher P. Gardner

With construction booming around Fort Drum, New 

York, and the Army looking for more ways to 

“green” its construction practices and buildings, 

the Fort Drum Program Office of the United States Army 

Corps of Engineers (USACE) New York District decided to 

look into alternative sustainable energy sources for new 

construction. One of these alternatives was geothermal

energy. 

Renewable Energy Source

The Corps first started using geothermal systems 

at Fort Drum in 2004 for the construction of the 

Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield Complex. These systems provide a renewable source of energy for heating and 

cooling buildings. The temperature below the earth’s surface remains nearly constant between 50 and 60 degrees 

Fahrenheit. Geothermal systems consist of a network of 

pipes filled with liquid buried in the ground; this acts as a 

heat exchanger to transfer energy to and from the building. 

Geothermal heat pump systems provide temperature control inside buildings without the burning of fossil fuels that 

occurs in traditional systems.

Use of these systems exceeds the standards for military energy requirements and reduces utility costs for 

Fort Drum, according to the New York District’s program 

manager. In these facilities, the heating and cooling work 

similar to that in traditional systems. Occupants can adjust 

the temperature on a room-by-room basis, and the installation can adjust the temperature from a central location.

Beyond the Barracks Projects

During the initial design of the Wheeler-Sack Army 

Airfield Complex in 2002, engineers from the Fort 

Drum Program Office met with the local Indian 

River School District, which incorporated a geothermal system into one of its large building additions. The engineers 

toured the facility and talked to the users and the design 

firm to get a better idea of the system operation and performance capabilities. 

After learning more about the concept, visiting other 

facilities that used geothermal approaches, and getting a 

better understanding of the specifics of geothermal design, 

the program office was ready to incorporate it into the designs and contract language of the barracks portion of the 

Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield Complex being solicited. The 

barracks were two of 17 buildings in a $100 million complex 

that was completed in 2006. The project manager at the Fort 

Drum Program Office reports that they were pleased with 

the end result of the project, and a bit surprised at how well 

the geothermal systems worked in the minus-20-degree
May-August 2010 September-December 2010 Engineer 39

temperatures. A survey of the residents in 

the Wheeler-Sack barracks yielded positive 

responses from all.

Based on the success with geothermal systems in barracks projects from 2004 through 

2008, the Fort Drum Program Office is now 

providing geothermal energy as a primary option for heating and cooling needs in all new 

construction, where feasible. (Geothermal 

doesn’t lend itself to large open-area buildings—such as hangars and vehicle maintenance facilities—where instead the Corps 

uses a green feature called “solar walls.”) 

Projects that support geothermal heating and 

cooling range from barracks facilities to administrative buildings. Although there were 

concerns during the design phase in 2003 

that geothermal methods would not work 

for Fort Drum applications due to the harsh 

winters, the Wheeler-Sack barracks project is 

proof that the systems do work there.

A child development center that is now 

under construction incorporates a geothermal heating and cooling system. The facility 

is designed to be Fort Drum’s first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design 

(LEED) Gold building. (The LEED rating 

system—with its four point-system levels of 

Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum—has 

created a framework encompassing building 

Pipes are installed as part of geothermal wells during construction of 

the Fort Drum child development center.

Crews work on trenches for geothermal wells, part of the heating and cooling system at the Fort Drum, New York, 

child development center.

Photo by Dan Desmet, New York District public affairs Photo by Dan Desmet, New York District public affairs

(Continued on page 42)
40 Engineer September-December 2010 May-August 2010

The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) 

New York District recently completed construction 

of barracks and adjoining administrative facilities 

for the 385th Infantry Battalion at Fort Drum, but the job 

was different from other barracks projects that are springing up as the installation continues to grow. The 385th is 

one of the Army’s Warrior in Transition (WIT) units—a 

relatively new concept for the Army. The units are made up 

of wounded Soldiers and are geared toward helping them 

make the transition back to traditional Army units or into 

civilian lives. 

The 144-Soldier barracks is only one part of the new 

$35.7 million WIT Complex, a phased project that is capable of expanding to seven facilities. The complex also includes a new company operations facility, where medical 

and personal services are available and where WIT commanders can manage their Soldiers’ intricate and often 

long transition processes in one place. Connected to the 

Soldiers’ housing, the facility serves as a kind of nerve center for their healing. After the contract for the WIT complex was awarded in July 2008, Phase I of the project was 

completed 18 months later, in mid-February 2010, and the 

Soldiers moved into the barracks on 10 April 2010. 

The 385th’s Alpha Company has approximately 125 

Soldiers, and their company commander notes that having everyone connected under one roof is a significant improvement. Many of the Soldiers, whether having suffered 

physical or psychological wounds—or both—have a litany 

of doctor and physical therapy appointments, counseling 

sessions, and other meetings required to prepare them 

By Mr. Christopher P. Gardner

Photo by Dan Desmet, New York District public affairs
September-December 2010

for the next steps in their lives. Many of these resources 

used to be spread all over the installation or even farther 

away. Now, case managers, nurses, social workers, counselors, and Army leadership are within walking distance 

of the housing—and Fort Drum’s Guthrie Ambulatory 

Health Care Facility is across the street from the complex. 

A Purple Heart recipient who was injured in an improvised 

explosive device (IED) blast in Afghanistan, and who recently moved into the WIT barracks, stated that the improved access obviates the need to drive Soldiers who can’t 

get around to their appointments. Additionally, having the 

Army leadership nearby is “a lot easier.”

Just as the facility offers Soldiers many services to help 

them with their healing and transition back toward more 

traditional units—since the ultimate goal is to return Soldiers to duty—there are also resources for transitioning 

back into the civilian world. These resources can include 

helping Soldiers with career services, exploring educational 

opportunities, and determining what kinds of support Soldiers will need after they leave the Army. At the adjoining 

administrative building in the complex, education counselors guide those looking for colleges—such as one Soldier in 

the 385th who was injured while training for deployment 

and now wants to become a police officer. 

The WIT barracks building appears similar to others 

from the outside, but on the inside the rooms are designed 

to be more comfortable for the transitioning Soldiers as 

they heal. The living quarters and kitchenette areas are 

larger and offer the Soldiers more privacy than in traditional barracks facilities. The size is comparable to a small 

apartment, with a personal side and doors to each room. 

The rooms offer more than comfort though, as they are not 

quite uniform throughout the barracks, and certain rooms 

are Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)-compatible: 

They have unique features like adjustable-height stoves 

and countertops and/or specialized bathroom facilities that 

A sheltered walkway connects the Warrior in 

Transition barracks to important services, such as 

counseling and command leadership.

Photo by Dan Desmet, New York District public affairs

can be especially helpful for Soldiers with physical injuries. 

Here, a Soldier can be assigned the best room for his or her 

unique situation. 

The three-story barracks is also equipped with elevators—including special oversize ones—and “areas of rescue,” which are designated spots near exits where people 

with disabilities can remain temporarily in safety during 

emergency situations while awaiting further instruction. 

Neither the larger elevators nor the areas of rescue are 

standard for an Army barracks.

The Warrior in Transition Complex at Fort Drum, New York, 

located next to the Guthrie 

Ambulatory Health Care Facility, 

is composed of special barracks 

facilities for wounded warriors 

and adjoins the Company Operations Facility.

Engineer 41
The WIT Complex at Fort Drum was one of the first of 

its kind in the Army to open up to Soldiers; presently, the 

only other completed facility like it is at Fort Riley, Kansas. 

There are WIT units elsewhere throughout the Army, and 

other installations are already regarding the Fort Drum 

facility as an example. The USACE Center of Standardization is proud of how well the facilities turned out and 

recently brought two WIT unit company commanders from 

Fort Belvoir, Virginia, to visit the Fort Drum complex—

with personnel from the USACE Baltimore District and 

an architect from the next WIT facility at Fort Belvoir—to 

learn what went into its planning, design, and construction.

The WIT Complex Phase I project is completely finished, 

but the complex is slated to continue growing immediately as part of WIT Phase II, which consists of a battalion 

headquarters facility, a Soldier and family care facility, and

48 additional rooms for Soldiers. During the next few years, 

there are also plans for additional housing, administrative 

facilities, a clinic, and a potential dining facility. The way 

the WIT Complex is designed to grow in phases—with structural additions having minimal effects on current occupants 

and the site—will benefit Soldiers, minimize impact to the 

environment, and provide savings to the government.

Mr. Gardner is a public affairs specialist with the United 

States Army Corps of Engineers. He currently serves with 

the New York District, based in New York City. He holds a 

bachelor’s in mass communication from the University of 

South Florida in Tampa.

42 Engineer September-December 2010

This geothermal system is inside the barracks in 

the new Warrior in Transition Complex at Fort Drum, 

New York.

Photo by Dan Desmet, New York District public affairs

performance and sustainability goals.) The $6 million child 

development center is essentially the Army’s equivalent of 

a daycare center. The facility will be approximately 17,000 

square feet, and contractors have drilled 16 wells to handle 

the facility’s heating and cooling needs. The wells are approximately 425 feet deep and took about a week to drill. 

The depths of the geothermal wells will vary throughout 

the installation, depending on the geology and thermal conductivity of the area.

Using geothermal energy lowers energy costs by reducing the amount of fossil fuels burned—which can be considerable during Fort Drum’s extreme winters, where temperatures can reach well below zero and have been known 

to reach the negative thirties. The geothermal system performs very well, even in the cold, but the project manager 

stressed that in the most extreme temperatures, the system 

sometimes needs a boost from traditional heating sources. 

Despite geothermal energy’s cost during the construction phase of approximately 30 percent more than traditional heating and cooling systems, the New York District’s 

program manager pointed out that “payback”—the time it 

takes for a facility to recoup that initial cost with money 

saved in utilities—is generally three to seven years. The 

payback time depends on the building size and the fluctuating cost of fossil fuels—the latter having shortened the 

estimated payback time in recent years. The program office 

is looking into monitoring systems to determine the specific 

return on investment of geothermal energy at Fort Drum.

Energy Progress at Fort Drum

Geothermal energy has been used, where feasible, 

during the construction of facilities since 2004. 

As of today, geothermal systems have been incorporated into 19 buildings currently completed, under 

construction, or under design at Fort Drum. This includes 

the aforementioned child development center, 11 barracks 

buildings, a brigade and a battalion headquarters building, 

and the addition to the Guthrie Ambulatory Health Care 

Clinic. Geothermal energy was also used in the recently 

completed Warrior in Transition Complex constructed for 

injured Soldiers (see article on page 40) and will be included in the next two facilities to be added to this complex.

Mr. Gardner is a public affairs specialist with the United 

States Army Corps of Engineers. He currently serves with 

the New York District, based in New York City. He holds a 

bachelor’s in mass communication from the University of 

South Florida in Tampa.

“Green Energy,” continued from page 39)
September-December 2010 Engineer 43

The five Great Lakes—Superior, Michigan, 

Huron, Erie, and Ontario—comprise one 

of our greatest natural wonders. Their six 

quadrillion gallons of water are spread over 94,500 

square miles, and their connecting waterways form 

the world’s largest inland water transportation system. From the westernmost port at Duluth, Minnesota, a ship can travel 1,160 miles to the St. Lawrence 

River and 2,340 miles to the Atlantic Ocean.1

 

Founded in 1841, the United States Lake Survey 

was undertaken as a hydrographic study to chart the 

inland seas and make them conducive to trade and 

development. One of the foremost commanders of this 

survey was Captain George Gordon Meade, an officer of the Corps of Topographical Engineers. Meade 

is usually widely recognized for his later role as the 

victor of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 and as commanding general of the Army of the Potomac during 

the Civil War. This article will examine Meade’s early 

role in the survey, both in advancing scientific research 

and developing the national economy and defining 

civil/military relationships at the beginning of the 

Civil War.

George G. Meade

George G. Meade was born in Cadiz, Spain, 

on 31 December 1815. His father, a wealthy 

American merchant, was financially ruined 

by his adherence to the cause of Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. After obtaining an appointment to the 

United States Military Academy at West Point from 

a Pennsylvania member of Congress, he graduated in 

1835, ranking 19th in a class of 56 members. Meade’s 

original branch was artillery, in which he served in 

Florida during the Seminole Wars. Resigning in 1836 

along with many other young officers, he pursued a 

short career in civil engineering but reentered the 

Army in 1842 as a second lieutenant in the Corps of 

Topographical Engineers. During the Mexican War 

(1846–48), he served at the battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterey and was awarded the brevet of first lieutenant. Thereafter, he was mostly engaged in 

lighthouse construction in Florida, New Jersey, and Delaware, in the Fourth and Seventh Districts respectively.2

In April 1856, at age 41, Lieutenant Meade received a 

transfer from coastal duty and was sent to Detroit to assist in the ongoing survey of the Great Lakes. In May 1857, 

he was promoted to captain and placed in command of the 

By Mr. Gustav J. Person

Captain Geor9e G. Meade

and the United States Lake Survey

Less than a decade after his work on the United States Lake 

Survey, Captain George G. Meade was Major General Meade, 

hero of Gettysburg.

Past in Review

Photo courtesy of Office of History, United States Army Corps of Engineers
44 Engineer September-December 2010

survey, replacing Lieutenant Colonel James Kearney, who 

was reassigned due to ill health. Meade’s official title was 

Superintendent (or Superintending) Engineer, Survey of 

the Northern & Northwestern Lakes. The process entailed 

mapping the lake shores and navigation hazards; charting 

the lake bottoms to locate hidden dangers; and mapping 

projected ship channels. The duty included improvements 

of existing harbors, as well as searching for potential sites 

that could be converted into harbors in time of war. Sites 

for lighthouses, beacons, and buoys also had to be located. 

The work was daunting. Some 6,000 miles of shoreline were 

to be surveyed. The Army surveyors had to determine latitude and longitude; measure the discharge of rivers into the 

lakes; and survey tributary rivers, narrows, and shoals.3

 Great Lakes Economy

With characteristically broad vision, Colonel John 

J. Abert (1786–1863), the first Chief of Topographical Engineers, described the survey in the 

most far-reaching terms. “These lakes,” he wrote, “constitute a great northern seaboard.” At almost every turn, he 

urged Congress to provide more money, buttressing his arguments for increased support by reminding the legislators 

of the thriving lake trade and backing his claims with the 

commercial statistics that he required of his engineers in 

the field.4

 In the 1820s and 1830s, the economy of the Great Lakes 

region made tremendous gains, leading to the need for a comprehensive survey. Congressman Joshua Giddings of Ohio 

had witnessed the beginnings of trade on the lakes during 

this period. During the 1840s, he called on fellow lawmakers 

to recognize the greatly expanded trade and provide for harbor improvement. He noted that trade on these waterways 

amounted to more than $65 million in 1841 and more than 

$100 million in 1844. Chicago’s Democratic congressman, 

John Wentworth, remarked in 1846 that “the commerce on 

the lakes the past season has been $125,000,000, employing 

6,000 active seamen. The large amount of lake commerce 

(import/export) will be best appreciated when it is known 

that the whole export commerce of the United States is but 

$114,000.000.” The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, already 

served as the linchpin for the new system of trade, tying the 

Great Lakes into New York City and the Northeast. Lake 

representatives demanded that the government create “harbors of refuge” for vessels caught in the violent storms that 

often swept across the inland seas. 

Map of the Great Lakes

Map courtesy of Master Sergeant Paul Jenkins, United States Army, Retired
as the American method. This procedure, invented by

Professor C.A. Young of Western Reserve College in Ohio, 

consisted simply of observing and timing the 

meridian passage of stars at two stations 

east and west of each other. Additionally, under Meade’s supervision, 

Lieutenants C.N. Turnbull and 

Orlando Poe did considerable 

astronomical work, and Lieutenant William P. Smith 

performed a good deal 

of magnetic work. The 

procurement of stateof-the-art chronometers 

and other instruments 

aided these important 

endeavors.7

In 1859, Meade set up 

19 weather stations on 

the five lakes. In addition 

to gauging the weather, he 

sought to predict it and warn 

mariners of impending storms. 

He also instituted a system for refining the observations made on the force 

and direction of the wind, after finding that the meteorological authorities 

had developed no uniform system.8

In 1860, the survey of the northeastern end of Lake Michigan was extended southward to include the Fox and Manitou Islands and Grand and Little Traverse Bays. This survey resulted in the publication of a much-needed chart of 

that dangerous part of Lake Michigan—the route traversed 

by vessels sailing between the Straits of Mackinac and Chicago. The Lake Survey completed a few local harbor surveys 

on Lake Superior by 1859 and began a general survey of the 

western end of that lake in 1861.9

From 1858 through 1861, the federal appropriations for 

the Lake Survey grew to $75,000 annually. The increase 

permitted expansion of the scope of the survey; introduction of more accurate methods to obtain longitude; and 

commencement of a series of magnetic and meteorological 

observations, as described above. In addition, these appropriations provided funds for the construction of an astronomical observatory at Detroit and, after 1858, for the first 

systematic recording of lake water levels.10

Meade would later write that he considered the early 

work on coastal lighthouses and the lakes survey as among 

the most important duties of his extensive career. However, 

he had watched with great anxiety the stresses that were 

beginning to tear the nation apart in the late 1850s. He 

scanned the political horizon for some glimmer of hope that 

the dreaded resort to hostilities might be averted. Therefore, 

in the presidential election of November 1860, he cast his 

vote for John Bell and Edward Everett of the new Constitutional Union Party, a compromise group that attempted to 

sway conservative voters who opposed both the Republicans 

September-December 2010 Engineer 45

The development of the lakes considerably reoriented 

the economy of the Midwest. Reflecting the influx of settlers from New England and western New York, 

more and more of the regional population 

lived around the lakes rather than in 

the Ohio Valley. An ever-larger 

portion of shipments from these 

states flowed east rather than 

south down the Mississippi 

River. Finally, the demands 

of Great Lakes congressmen for government improvement outlays led to 

a realignment of Northern voters. The new patterns of trade weakened 

old political alliances 

and formed a new, purely 

Northern party that joined 

together two overlapping 

groups: the strongest critics 

of slavery and the advocates of

federal programs to develop the 

North. The new organization, known 

after 1854 as the Republican Party, 

would provide additional impetus

toward the outbreak of the Civil War.5

Meade’s Accomplishments

Although Army engineers conducted surveys as early 

as 1833 and during the period 1836–37, the system-

.atic surveying was not begun until 1841. In that 

year, Captain William G. Williams, then stationed at Buffalo in charge of harbor improvements on Lake Erie, received directions from Colonel Abert to start the survey of 

the Great Lakes. Into this ever-expanding and potentially 

explosive political situation, George Meade arrived with 

his family at the Detroit headquarters of the United States 

Lake Survey in 1856. He came well prepared for this role. 

He had the comprehensive mental grasp of the country that 

makes a born surveyor and which must have been apparent 

to everyone associated with him. His principal accomplishment was the survey of the whole of Lake Huron during the 

1857–59 seasons and completion of the survey of Saginaw 

Bay. Lieutenant Colonel Cyrus Comstock, one of Meade’s 

successors as commander of the survey and a future commandant of the United States Army Engineer School (1886–

87), noted that “the nature of the field operations required a 

combination of triangulation and astronomical work for the 

determinations of the positions of points on the shores of 

Lake Huron, and [Meade] made some changes necessary in 

the method of executing the off-shore hydrography.” He also 

noted that Meade determined the general configuration of 

the bottom of that lake by running a few lines completely 

across it.6

Undoubtedly, the most notable method Meade adopted 

for the survey was a modification of the procedure to determine longitudes by the use of the electric telegraph, known 

Seal of the Survey of the Lakes, 1858
46 Engineer September-December 2010

and the Democrats. Abraham Lincoln, with only 40 percent 

of the popular vote, won enough electoral votes to win the 

presidency. The secession of the Deep South states followed 

soon thereafter.11

 Civil War

I

n the strongest language, Meade denounced the Southern leaders who were goading their people into civil 

war. He knew of the immense superiority of the North 

over the South in human and materiel resources, and of the 

contempt of the South for the North. In Detroit, as elsewhere, there was intense political excitement, and one of 

its manifestations was distrust of many officers of the Army 

and Navy—a number of whom had resigned their commissions to side with the Confederacy. In the midst of the uproar, a proclamation in Detroit requested the presence of 

military officers at a mass meeting in order that they might 

take the oath of allegiance to the United States. Captain 

Meade was having none of this. His officers met at his home 

and, with one exception, declined to attend the mass meeting. As justification, they claimed that it was unbecoming of 

officers in government service to be present at such a meeting, especially for such a purpose; that it would set a dangerous precedent for officers to take an oath at the demand 

of a crowd; and that the organizers of the meeting were 

unjustified in making such a demand. They then 

drew up, signed, and forwarded a statement of their 

willingness to take the oath of allegiance whenever 

called upon by the War Department.

The action of these officers in declining to attend 

caused a great deal of violent language from the 

public at the mass meeting, which dispersed after 

the usual patriotic speeches and resolutions. Nothing of consequence came of the affair, although it 

generated some suspicion and ill will among some 

prominent people in that part of the country.

Soon after the firing on Fort Sumter on 12 April 

1861, Captain Meade made urgent and repeated requests to the War Department for active duty. With 

no response, he went to Washington in late June. 

He protested against being retained in charge of 

the Lake Survey and applied for a commission in 

one of the new regiments being raised to put down 

the rebellion. Unfortunately, nothing came of it and 

he returned to Detroit empty-handed. Meanwhile, 

he had been placed in charge of the erection of new 

lighthouses on Lake Superior. All of the younger officers under his command had already been ordered 

to active duty and were engaged in raising and organizing new volunteer units. 

In early August, he was ordered to turn over his 

duties to Colonel James D. Graham—at age 77, one 

of the oldest topographical officers—and to return 

to Washington to take charge of the recruitment of 

a company of topographical engineers, lately authorized by Congress. Meade was much dismayed by 

the situation in which engineer officers, agreeing or 

ordered to continue their own corps duties, were left behind 

in junior rank, while others were rapidly being advanced 

to field and general officer grades in the volunteer service. 

This dismay had led to his determination to resign his Regular Army commission in order to accept the colonelcy of 

one of the regiments of Michigan volunteers, a post which 

had been offered to him by Governor Austin Blair. However, 

much to his surprise and gratification, he was officially notified of his appointment, on 31 August 1861, as a brigadier general of volunteers with orders to report to Major 

General George B. McClellan, then commanding the Union 

forces around Washington, D.C. He hurriedly sent his family back to Philadelphia and hastened to the capital, where 

he was assigned as a brigade commander in the division of 

Pennsylvania troops commanded by Major General George 

A. McCall. As the world knows, his later record of service in 

the Civil War was decidedly distinguished.12

Epilogue

I

n Meade’s absence, Colonel Graham, and later Lieutenant Colonel William F. Raynolds, supervised the Lake 

Survey. Both officers would continue and capitalize on 

Meade’s excellent work. Due to active operations during 

the Civil War, the survey was the only active topographical field office still operating, although only the survey of

Colonel James D. Graham

Photo courtesy of Office of History, United States Army Corps of Engineers

(Continued on page 49)
September-December 2010 Engineer 47

This two-part article is designed for two audiences: 

the commander who is wary of intrusive or distracting investigations that lack a positive goal; and the 

leader who is likely to be tagged as a unit’s next investigating officer and who may not have any relevant experience 

investigating. It will delve into why it is almost always in 

the best interests of the Soldier, the unit, and the Army to 

investigate when a commander asks, “How did this happen?” and the answer is, “We don’t exactly know.”

Part II, to be published in the January–April 2011 issue, 

will focus on the mechanics and tactics, techniques, and 

procedures for executing lawful, thorough, and productive 

investigations. Like an engineer route sanitization mission, these two parts will push away some of the debris of 

misconceptions and obstacles to good detective work, fill in 

the potholes of poor execution with sound procedures, and 

give commanders and investigating officers some advice for 

traveling the road to executing legally sufficient and helpful investigations. 

Balancing Act

Commanders often struggle to balance their focus 

between accomplishing the mission and maintaining good order and discipline among their formations. Of course, as all experienced leaders can attest, the 

one often affects the other. This balancing act is even more 

accented during a deployment, where there is little distinction between Soldiers’ living and working environments. 

Tensions and stress levels are high, and the availability 

of “down time” is sometimes scarce. In such conditions, 

spending time and energy to question and answer nagging 

problems may not sit at the top of the priority list.1

 But the 

absence of clear and fair processes to deal with the nagging 

disciplinary problems that frequently arise may only serve 

to exacerbate small issues, turning them into large crises. 

These crises are often attributable to an earlier failure to 

deal with the problem. Consequently, the command’s attention is drawn away from operations, which may result in a 

degraded ability to accomplish the mission. In other situations, misconduct is less a concern than a systemic failure 

in leadership, training, maintenance, or elsewhere. In all of 

these cases, it is imperative that the method of uncovering 

facts and making recommendations—how problems are investigated—is rational, reasonable, and internally cogent. 

This ensures that—

■ The Soldiers’ rights are protected.

■ The right evidence is collected for the right reasons and

in the right way.

■ The chain of command is put in the best possible position to make sound decisions. 

But before we get to how we investigate, it is equally important to know why we investigate.

Why We Investigate

Under Rule 303 of the Manual for Courts-Martial 

United States,2

 commanders are authorized to 

commit time and effort to investigating misconduct. It is a basic application of command authority to ensure the good order and discipline of the unit. The gist of 

this authority is the ability of the immediate commander, 

who has direct contact with and knowledge about a particular Soldier, to ask relevant questions to jump-start a more 

formal investigation or help drive an efficient and effective 

decision. Asking questions might take the shape of an investigation under Army Regulation (AR) 15-6, Procedures 

for Investigating Officers and Boards of Officers3

; a formal 

Criminal Investigation Division inquiry driven by law enforcement specialists; or an immediate administrative response by the commander. 

Of course, not all fact-finding efforts are about criminal misconduct, but fact-finding inquiries are permitted or 

even encouraged, even if the event or incident in question is 

not likely to lead to a court-martial. Consider a scenario in 

which a commander reasonably predicts that a vehicle accident “outside the wire” between a mine-resistant, ambushprotected (MRAP) vehicle and a pickup truck driven by a 

local national civilian was caused by poor road conditions 

or driver fatigue. The commander may be inclined to order 

This is the first of a two-part discussion of why an official investigation is often helpful to the Soldier, the unit, and the 

United States Army, and how this useful tool can best be conducted.

By Captain Daniel D. Maurer
48 Engineer September-December 2010

a response plan that includes nothing more than retraining, better route reconnaissance, and confirmation of crew 

rest. However, during the course of the inquiry or investigation, the commander may learn that the Soldier’s fatigue 

was caused by his reckless choice to remain awake playing 

video games in his containerized housing unit (CHU) until 0430 on the day of the patrol. Or that the unit’s patrol 

leader knew of a dangerous, accident-prone intersection on 

the planned route, yet never warned his Soldiers or trained 

them on mitigating that risk. In this case, the commander 

may want to consider adverse actions. The opposite scenario is equally plausible. The Soldier’s actions may be labeled 

as misconduct at first, until investigation reveals that environmental factors or leadership failures set conditions for 

the accident. Every investigation has a potential for legal 

consequences and is therefore triggered by the body of law 

that governs military justice. 

Since this potential exists in all investigations, it makes 

sense to give quasi-law enforcement authority to commanders before they engage their quasi-prosecutorial powers. 

Because of the unique environment in which the United 

States Army works and lives, efficiency—balanced against 

fairness of process—is essential to the promotion of justice 

in the functioning of a disciplined, ordered unit. In other 

words, there are situations—sometimes as a unique attribute of military service such as minor disrespect or failure 

to obey a lawful order while living in the barracks—wherein the commander can gather facts, review and reflect on 

them, draw reasonable conclusions from them, and dispose of the incident with some administrative or punitive

consequence. 

Sending a Positive Message

Sometimes, in an information-operations or public relations sense, commanders may find great utility in 

starting an investigation. There is a “strategic messaging” value to be gained when Soldiers, their families, 

the public, or superior commander see that the unit recognizes that an issue exists and takes reasonable steps to understand why. By initiating an investigation, a commander 

can counter the fear that “airing dirty laundry” somehow 

opens the unit to outside criticism. Telling superiors that 

an issue exists and what actions are being taken to investigate it and proposing reasonable and deliberate courses of 

action demonstrate the commander’s depth of situational 

awareness, thoroughness of fact-finding, and calm maturity as a leader. 

Sometimes, though, commanders will not have a choice. 

Many commands impose mandatory investigations for 

certain events, such as an AR 15-6 investigation for the 

suspected suicide of a Soldier. Formal equal opportunity 

complaints automatically spark investigations.4

 In these 

cases, the value gained by conducting a dignified, independent, official review of the facts to satisfy the concerns of 

interests such as the media, families, and fellow Soldiers 

is thought to outweigh the potentially negative effect such 

an investigation might have on the operational capability 

of the command. 

Keeping Commanders Grounded

“Commanding officers exercise broad disciplinary powers in furtherance of their command 

responsibilities. Discretion, fairness, and 

sound judgment are essential ingredients of military justice.”5

 Slowing down, pausing to reflect, and initiating an 

investigation is a field-tested and field-proven method for 

ensuring that a commander’s first, visceral response to a 

troubling event is not some irrational or irresponsible action that could potentially end the career of a Soldier, seriously hinder promotion opportunity, take away pay, or 

rob a Soldier of liberty through confinement in prison. An 

investigation is one of the checks and balances on the commander’s inherent disciplinary authority and helps ensure 

that the application of power is “warranted, appropriate, 

and fair.”6

Resourcing an investigation early to immediately address incidents, when evidence and memories are fresh, allows the commander to make better-informed and relevant 

decisions. In contrast, waiting to investigate may seriously 

narrow options later on. Consider a verbal dispute between 

Soldiers in their shared CHU, where one has an M4 rifle 

loaded with a magazine. The platoon sergeant, upon breaking up the argument, sees the weapon and concludes that 

the rifle’s owner intended to threaten his roommate and so 

launches a chain of events that lead to an Article 15. The 

commander may find that if an inquiry had started as soon 

as credible information surfaced, it would have revealed 

that the argument between the roommates started when 

one entered the room, saw his despondent roommate with 

a full magazine in his rifle, staring at pictures of his wife, 

and smelled alcohol on his breath. A reasonable person 

could believe that this was not an aggressive—or homicidal—threat but the interruption of a potential suicide. Consequently, the command’s legal and leadership challenges 

would be different. Waiting, or choosing not to investigate 

at all, was tantamount to deliberately avoiding better situational awareness, not to mention losing the chance to act 

in a way that was most appropriate.

Improving Institutional Memory

I

nvestigations serve purposes and create value in similar ways that after action reviews do. Just as such reviews identify what actually happened compared to 

what should have happened and formulate recommendations for improvement, investigations can be thought of as 

organized lessons-learned libraries for the next command. 

An investigation gathers information about an event or 

incident; assembles those facts into a complete picture of 

what occurred; draws conclusions based on applicable standards, guides, or laws; then proposes recommendations 

from the lesson of that particular case. When faced with 

a pressing issue or systemic concern, future commanders 

can find substantial utility in going back into the records 

to discover how previous leaders identified and dealt with 

similar issues or concerns.
Though there are several types of cases that they should 

refer to professional investigators (to be discussed in Part 

II), commanders should not be reluctant to exercise their 

authority to investigate. The military has given commanders the ability and authority to be their own “internal affairs bureau.” The difficult choice to trigger an investigation 

might be eased if a commander’s inquiry or AR 15-6 investigation is considered a fact-finding trip led by a neutral 

observer. Would the unit benefit from a dedicated examination of the problem and a neutral set of recommendations 

about it? Commanders will consider all the information 

available and conduct a cost-benefit analysis, but a realistic standard guide could be quite simple. If a superior commander is likely to take an interest in an issue, incident, or 

event and would probably ask for an analysis of cause and 

effect—then an official inquiry is probably needed.

However, not every issue, incident, or event needs an 

expansive AR 15-6 investigation. Part II will look into the 

mechanics of executing an investigation, from deciding how 

big the scope ought to be, to planning the investigative mission, to the critical thinking inherent to solid probing and 

fact-finding. 

Captain Maurer serves as the command judge advocate 

for the 36th Engineer Brigade (Joint Task Force Rugged). 

Previous assignments include trial counsel for the brigade 

at Fort Hood, Texas; assistant task force engineer; sapper 

platoon leader attached to a 4th Infantry Division mechanized infantry task force during Operation Iraqi Freedom; 

and battalion support platoon leader and supply officer in a 

mechanized engineer battalion at Fort Carson, Colorado. He 

holds a bachelor’s from James Madison University, where 

he was Distinguished Military Graduate from the United 

States Army Reserve Officer Training Corps program, and 

a law degree from The Ohio State University.

Endnotes

1

Investigations are not limited to cases of property accountability or possible misconduct. Any systemic problem 

that could be found on a commander’s desk can call for a rational, ordered inquiry with a purpose and scope, gathered 

for independent scrutiny.

2

Manual for Courts-Martial United States, Rule 303, p. 

II-19, 2008. “Upon receipt of information that a member 

of the command is accused or suspected of committing an 

offense or offenses triable by court-martial, the immediate 

commander shall make or cause to be made a preliminary 

inquiry into the charges or suspected offenses.”

3

AR 15-6, Procedures for Investigating Officers and 

Boards of Officers, 2 October 2006.

4

AR 600-20, Army Command Policy, Chapter 6 and Appendix D, 18 March 2008.

5

Ibid., para. 4-7a.

6

Manual for Courts-Martial United States, Rule 306 (b) 

Discussion.

September-December 2010 Engineer 49

Huron was finally completed. The Lake Survey would continue until 3 October 1970, when it was redesignated the 

Lake Survey Center and officially transferred to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It became 

part of the National Oceanic Survey, the former Coast 

and Geodetic Survey. The Lake Survey Center was finally 

phased out in March 1976.13

Mr. Person is the installation historian at Fort Belvoir, 

Virginia. He retired from the New York State Division of 

Parole after 30 years of service and is a retired lieutenant 

colonel from the New York Army National Guard. He holds 

a master’s in history from Queens College, City University 

of New York.

Endnotes

1

Arthur M. Woodford, Charting the Inland Seas: A History of the U.S. Lake Survey, United States Army Corps of 

Engineers, Detroit District, Detroit, Michigan, 1991, p. 1.

2

Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Blue, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1964, pp. 315-16.

3Richard A. Sauers, Meade: Victor of Gettysburg, 

Brassey’s, Inc., Washington, D.C., 2003, pp. 11-12; Frank 

N. Schubert, Martin Reuss, Dale E. Floyd, and Martin K. 

Gordon, The Nation Builders; A Sesquicentennial History 

of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, 1838-1863, Office 

of History, United States Army Corps of Engineers, Fort 

Belvoir, Virginia, 1988, pp. 43-44; Woodford, p. 193.

4

Schubert et al., p. 44.

5

Marc Egnal, Clash of Extremes; The Economic Origins 

of the Civil War, Hill and Wang, New York, 2009, pp. 101-22.

6

“Annual Report of the Bureau of Topographical Engineers,” 15 November 1841, in 27th Congress, 2d Session, 

House Document 2, pp. 146, 167; Henry P. Beers, “A History of the U.S. Topographical Engineers, 1813-1863,” Part 

II, The Military Engineer, Volume XXXIV, Number 201, 

July 1942, pp. 348-49; George Gordon Meade, The Life and 

Letters of George Gordon Meade, Major General, United 

States Army, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, New 

York, 1913, Volume 1, pp. 209-10; C.B. Comstock, “Report 

Upon the Primary Triangulation of the United States Lake 

Survey,” United States Army Corps of Engineers, Washington, D.C., United States Government Printing Office, 

1882, pp. 2-4.

7

Meade, pp. 211-13.

8

Schubert et al., pp. 44-45; Isaac R. Pennypacker, General Meade, D. Appleton and Company, New York, New 

York, 1901, p. 20.

9

Woodford, pp. 37-38.

10Ibid., p. 38.

11Sauers, p. 12.

12Meade, pp. 213-16.

13Schubert et al., p. 45; Woodford, pp. 186-89.

“Past in Review,” continued from page 46)
50 Engineer September-December 2010 May-August 2010

Ten cadets from the United States 

Military Academy at West Point, 

New York, found a temporary 

home in the United States Army Engineer Research and Development Center 

(ERDC) this summer while on Advanced 

Individual Academic Development Program assignments. Designed to give 

students hands-on experience, the assignments include weeks of research, 

with the cadets expected to create a final product, briefing, or report for West 

Point. In some cases, a cadet continues 

to work on the project as an individual 

study elective course during the following academic year, an option that many 

of ERDC’s cadets chose. 

The voluntary program offers many 

options, such as touring France to sharpen language skills and absorb the culture. ERDC has participated in the program intermittently since 1978, and this 

year’s crop of 10 cadets was the largest 

yet hosted by the research organization. 

ERDC Serves as

Summer Home for Cadets

By Ms. Megan Holland

A cadet helps an ERDC researcher prepare for an experimental explosion 

while working with ERDC’s Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory.

Photo by Oscar Reihsmann ACE-IT
May-August 2010 September-December 2010 Engineer 51

Three of the cadets worked with ERDC’s Geotechnical and 

Structures Laboratory, four with the Environmental Laboratory, and one with the Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, all in Vicksburg, Mississippi; two more were assigned 

to ERDC’s Construction Engineering Research Laboratory 

(CERL) in Champaign, Illinois.

ERDC engineers and scientists mentor the cadets on a 

variety of diverse projects. One of this year’s projects focused on mitigation of improvised explosive device (IED) 

attacks against Soldiers. The project involved making 

roads safer by reducing the forces that act on a vehicle 

during an IED attack, in addition to lowering the insurgents’ ability to emplace the explosive devices in the first 

place. The cadets working on this project tested small-scale 

models in the Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory 

centrifuge lab and worked in ERDC’s United States Army 

Corps of Engineers Reachback Operations Center, evaluating the best measures to lessen these risks in-theater 

and testing software. They also spent time at ERDC’s explosives range, testing ERDC-created mitigation measures 

on quarter- and half-scale models. Their goal was to determine if the measures could make IED blasts survivable

by Soldiers.

Another cadet deployed to assist the Environmental Laboratory in response to efforts by the Department 

of the Interior (DOI) after the Deepwater Horizon oil 

spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He helped the Environmental

Laboratory and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service

organize a natural resource damage assessment database 

to document injury to DOI public trust natural resources. 

He also helped in beach bird surveys by searching beach 

segments to collect data on bird populations in areas affected by the spill.

At CERL, a cadet majoring in civil engineering spent 

the summer researching renewable and alternative energy 

technologies in Afghanistan, concentrating on the potential 

to reduce the need for diesel fuel and reduce annual costs 

by installing a variety of energy-saving measures. He also 

studied the conversion of waste to energy through gasification, assessing the potential use of a gasifier to reduce the 

volume of waste while producing enough energy to automate the waste system and/or offset diesel fuel consumption for generators.

Much of the program’s success is credited to the 

ERDC scientists and engineers who act as mentors for 

the cadets in their assignments. ERDC benefits from 

the efforts of the talented cadets, and the future leaders 

in turn learn about the center’s important solutions to 

Army problems. 

Ms. Holland is a contract writer for ERDC. She holds a 

bachelor’s in English and writing from Mississippi College. 

Before working at ERDC, she was a newspaper reporter in 

Vicksburg, Mississippi.

A cadet works in ERDC’s Environmental Laboratory in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Photo by David Roberts, ERDC PAO
52 Engineer 36 Engineer September-December 2010 May-August 2010

The modular deployment of United States Army units 

from different components presents many issues. 

This article discusses some of the lessons learned 

by leaders of the 779th Engineer Battalion (Construction), 

Florida Army National Guard, and its subordinate companies as they deployed to support Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

Useful Preparations

React to changes in First United States Army’s 

Commander’s Training Tool (CTT) requirements during predeployment training. Any 

Reserve Component unit that has mobilized recently is 

intimately familiar with the CTT. With its massive tracking spreadsheet of training requirements to be completed 

before a unit arrives at its mobilization center, it can be a 

daunting list of documentation. One of the more significant 

challenges units face is the continual updating of CTT versions. If a unit begins training with the version in effect 

at the start of premobilization, it can be disheartening to 

learn that completed events are now invalid or incomplete 

because a newer version has taken effect. 

Leaders may find it helpful to pursue a “grandfather 

clause” to remain under the standards of the version they 

started with, but at a minimum they must stay alert to version changes and the effects they may have on completed 

training. It would be ideal to immediately migrate to the 

latest training recommendations coming from in-theater, 

but once the time-sensitive nature, the complexity, and the 

By Major Kevin L. Becar

Soldiers of the 

115th Engineer 

Company fabricate 

an interior truss.

Mobilizing the National Guard 

in a Modular Environment

Mobilizing the National Guard 

in a Modular Environment
May-August 2010 September-December 2010 Engineer 37 Engineer 53

sheer size of the premobilization process are factored in, 

that migration would become very difficult to manage.

Mesh administrative functions with a new higher 

headquarters. Unity of command is one principle of war 

that many people believe is violated in today’s modular environment. While the principle certainly exists within the 

deployed battalion, the United States Army National Guard 

companies from different states that comprise the battalion still have a secondary command relationship with their 

joint force headquarters and organic battalions back home. 

This can pose problems at the brigade level, where Active 

Army companies have different reporting requirements 

and procedures. The Active Army companies may authorize 

battlefield promotions that are not available to the National 

Guard units. Although the brigade may hold Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) Evaluation Report authority over the 

Active Army companies, the National Guard units may 

be allowed to report evaluations through their own state

systems. 

All of this introduces challenges to take into consideration for modular mobilization of units. It is critical for 

leaders to contact their higher 

headquarters as soon as possible 

to find out what requirements 

will be so that they can come prepared. For example, some of the 

779th Engineer Battalion companies closed out Officer Evaluation Reports (OERs) the day 

before going on active duty. This 

allowed them to capture performance for the full mobilization 

on a single evaluation. Companies that did not follow this 

policy had to close out annual 

OERs intermittently throughout 

the deployment, often having to 

obtain signatures from the rear, 

which delayed their completion. 

If the theater headquarters can 

provide its rating chain requirements, these may be established 

before a unit’s deployment. 

The completeness of personnel records for all Soldiers before 

deployment is also important. 

Missing information will affect 

in-theater boards, awards, and many other administrative 

items. This information must also be updated throughout 

the deployment in order to be prepared for proper completion of demobilization records that can capture all the 

updates and additions that Soldiers earned during their 

combat tour.

Become acquainted with units assigned for deployment. Learning the capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses of attached companies and how they can be mobilized to 

support the commander’s vision is a tough chore. The 779th 

hosted a conference for its subordinate companies that allowed key leaders from three states to meet each other, laying the groundwork for future operational relationships. 

The battalion found it most effective to stay on the same 

calendar for all major milestones. One company even realigned its annual training date and location to conduct the 

event with the battalion headquarters. After meeting with 

First Army to conduct a joint assessment, companies from 

the three different states discussed issues and challenges 

in order to agree on a strategy for the remainder of premobilization training. 

A clevis and chain turn a bucket loader into a device to maneuver Jersey barriers.

“The more flexible a unit’s organization and 

leadership teams are, the easier it will be for 

them to react to the many unknown situations 

encountered in-theater.”
It is also important to begin setting up secure Internet 

accounts for key leaders before postmobilization training. 

This allows immediate contact with leaders in-theater to 

refine the unit’s mission rehearsal exercise (MRX) scenario, 

based on the most relevant information. As units march toward completion of CTT requirements before postmobilization training, they should be planning to arrive at the same 

mobilization center on or about the same date to conduct 

the important MRX together. In addition, the mobilization 

center training schedule can be synchronized for the entire battalion. Agreement on the dates and order of training events, passes, and departure ceremonies is the key to 

maintaining this synchronization.

Collect situational awareness on the new area of 

operations before arrival. If a battalion-level predeployment site survey cannot be arranged, a visit to the mobilization center by a key leader from a unit in the future area 

of operations would be helpful. This representative can 

share intelligence updates and operational details about 

the area and answer most questions. This information was 

invaluable to the 779th and helped refine MRX details and 

packing lists and satisfy Soldier expectations. Early receipt 

of the tactical standing operating procedures and policy letters was a great benefit as well.

Learn engineer-specific tactics, techniques, and 

procedures (TTP) from new units. Despite the challenges, the positive effects of modularity include the opportunity to learn new, more effective TTP from units just attached for deployment. One of the most significant lessons 

the 779th learned from its attached vertical construction 

company was the use of prefabrication. Soldiers from the 

115th Engineer Company (Vertical), West Virginia Army 

National Guard, introduced prefabrication during the MRX 

when they were tasked to construct Southwest Asia huts. 

Instead of arriving on-site, clearing it, and establishing security for the duration of construction, they remained on 

the forward operating base (FOB) in relative comfort and 

safety to prefabricate the shelters. They spent minimal 

time on travel and work time on-site to quickly erect the 

prefabricated huts. The concept was perfected during postmobilization training and was highly effective in Iraq. The 

115th commander said that minimizing engineer on-site 

time eases the logistical strain on the supported unit and 

that prefabrication cuts that time by 30 to 40 percent.

Another great TTP came from the 1313th Engineer 

Company (Horizontal), Indiana Army National Guard. The 

company implemented nontraditional methods to maximize 

the use of heavy engineer equipment to accomplish the mission. The 1313th Soldiers fabricated a replacement bucket 

loader tooth to maneuver Jersey barriers more quickly. In 

addition to using excavators, the engineers used front end 

loaders to fill HESCO Bastion Concertainer® units, which 

reached heights of 11 to 12 feet. In the absence of a crane, 

excavators were used to move and set T-Walls® without 

applying too much stress to the arm. All of these methods 

were tested and practiced with the necessary risk assessments for maximum potential on-site. 

Prepare for cross-functionality and reorganization as the mission dictates. A battalion may not operate with its own organic capabilities for all of its rotation. 

Engineer battalions may act as “construction effects” or 

“combat effects” units or a combination of both. In order 

to provide full spectrum engineer operations in every

operational environment, engineer brigade commanders 

54 Engineer September-December 2010

This is one of the many ways to use a chain to lift a Jersey barrier, as demonstrated by the 1313th Engineer Company 

in Mosul, Iraq.
Conclusion

The more flexible a unit’s organization and leadership teams are, the easier it will be for them to react 

to the many unknown situations encountered intheater. That’s not to lessen the importance of a deploying unit arriving with the most relevant information 

available, especially from its new higher headquarters. 

Deploying leaders must learn as much as possible about 

the missions and organizations above, below, and beside 

them so that they can react most effectively to changes 

in plans. The Army has always been known for flexibility and adaptability to enemy TTP; deploying leaders 

can look forward to adding to that legacy during their

rotations.

Major Becar is executive officer of the 779th Engineer 

Battalion. Previous assignments include operations and 

training officer, 779th Engineer Battalion; executive officer, 

153d Finance Battalion; operations and training officer, 

220th Finance Group; supply officer, 116th Engineer Battalion (Combat); and commander, Bravo Company, 116th 

Engineer Battalion. He holds a bachelor’s in accounting 

from The College of Idaho and is a graduate of the United 

States Army Command and General Staff College, Fort 

Leavenworth, Kansas. A certified public accountant, he has 

been a member of the United States Army National Guard 

for 24 years.

may slice up battalions to share capabilities with each 

other. The staff of a construction effects battalion may not 

need to master company-level operations for route clearance, for example, but the staff should become familiar 

enough with assured mobility missions, procedures, and 

equipment to exercise command and control over any combat effects units that may be attached to their battalion. 

The 779th Engineer Battalion added command and control 

of route clearance missions to its MRX to validate staff 

proficiency. That effort paid off when the battalion was assigned an Active Army sapper company during its rotation. An experienced sapper NCO acted as liaison in the 

battalion tactical operations center to foster a close relationship and avoid miscommunications. 

In addition to cross-functionality, units will likely need 

to reorganize their modified table of organization and 

equipment (MTOE) to meet new and unexpected demands. 

For example, most units will need to carve out a protective 

security detail to take the command team outside the wire 

on battlefield circulations. There will also be FOB details 

such as gate guard duty to provide. It is strongly advised 

that units capitalize on overstrength authorizations to help 

meet these requirements. The 779th was authorized to deploy with 10 percent excess strength, and the additional 

personnel proved valuable. Staying flexible to these everchanging demands will allow units to quickly and effectively reorganize their structure to accomplish the mission.

September-December 2010 Engineer 55

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The Engineer Writer’s Guide
56 Engineer September-December 2010 May-August 2010

The North Dakota Army National Guard’s 957th Engineer Company (Multirole Bridge) was the first 

Army unit to train on a new bridge anchorage system in a fully operational scenario. The training took place 

on the Missouri River, south of Bismarck, during the unit’s 

two-week annual training in June. The Missouri River was 

selected as an ideal location to test this system because of 

its width and fast-moving current.

The training began with a weeklong 40-hour stretch 

of classroom instruction on the improved ribbon bridge 

(IRB), followed by a practical exercise with the equipment 

and bridge. The 210-meter bridge span was left in place 

overnight and observed on Friday before the Soldiers and 

trainers disassembled it. Not only was the 957th training on new equipment, but they were also uniquely part 

of an important operational assessment of a new anchorage system that has never been used to 

bridge waters with currents as fast as 

the Missouri River over a span of 200 

meters. Observing the assessment was 

the North Dakota adjutant general, 

who said that the Soldiers’ feedback 

will enable program managers to incorporate final adjustments to the anchorage system before final production and 

distribution to military bridging units.

After the bridge span was emplaced, several tests were performed. 

First, the forward lateral movement 

of the bridge was tested by driving 

a 35-ton common bridge transporter 

truck across it, loaded with an MKII 

Bridge Erection Boat (BEB). Crossing 

at top speed, the truck then performed 

an emergency “braking stop.” During a total of ten crossings, minimal 

forward movement of the system was 

observed.

By Staff Sergeant Billie Jo Lorius and Mr. William Prokopyk

This close-up shows the main component of the new “thrust and shore guy” 

cable system used to anchor the IRB installed on the Missouri River.

Photo by LTC Rick J. Smith, North Dakota ARNG Public Affairs Photo by SSG Billie Jo Lorius, North Dakota ARNG Public Affairs
May-August 2010 September-December 2010 Engineer 57

Side deflection of the bridge was also tested. After ten 

MKII BEBs were attached on the downstream side of the 

bridge, they applied full reverse-throttle thrust to induce 

a tremendous side load pull. Little side deflection, shore 

guy cable movement, or loosing was observed, and only 

minimal adjustments to the cabling were required. Preliminary observations of these evaluations indicated that this 

new anchorage system successfully accomplished its designed mission. The 957th and the state of North Dakota—

strategically selected for this assessment—played a critical role in determining the system’s mission effectiveness

and safety.

Following removal of all the equipment, the 957th 

and the various agencies responsible for evaluating this 

bridging system conducted a detailed after action review. Suggestions for adjustments and improvements to 

the hardware—as well as the operational employment 

and disassembly tactics, techniques, and procedures—

were discussed and will be considered for inclusion before

final production and delivery to the force. Once deemed 

ready, the new anchorage system is targeted for immediate movement and delivery to Afghanistan to address

urgent warfighter operational needs for improved anchorage capability.

The new “thrust and shore guy” cable system is designed for use with the IRB. It is targeted to fully replace 

the older “overhead tower system,” the 1950s vintage 

anchorage technologies currently used when employing 

the older bridge system now in use by the military. The 

system was designed for the IRB but is desired and targeted for multiple dry- and wet-gap systems. This new 

anchorage system will be more permanent and is easier 

and faster to install—which is paramount for Soldiers 

employing it in warfighter operations. The system was 

designed by General Dynamics European Land Systems–

Germany. Overseeing the event and providing data collection efforts and additional safety oversight were members 

from various government offices and agencies. Supporting agencies include Product Manager Bridging; TankAutomotive and Armaments Command (TACOM); TACOM Research, Development and Engineer Center (TARDEC); the Maneuver Support Center of Excellence, and the 

National Guard Bureau. 

Staff Sergeant Lorius is the deputy public information 

officer for the North Dakota National Guard. She has a 

bachelor’s in English and writing from Dickinson State 

University and a master’s in management from the University of Mary. 

Mr. Prokopyk is the strategic communication specialist 

for the North Dakota National Guard and is retired after 

nearly 27 years as a United States Army Corps of Engineers 

officer. He has a bachelor’s in civil engineering technology 

from Youngstown State University and a master’s in operational sciences from the Air Force Institute of Technology. 

Soldiers of the North Dakota Army National Guard’s 957th Engineer Company (Multirole Bridge) secure the improvised 

ribbon bridge on the Missouri River.

Photo by William Prokopyk, North Dakota Army National Guard Public Affairs
58 Engineer September-December 2010

Publication 

Number

Title Date Description

(and Current Status)

Currently Under Revision

ATTP 3-34.23

(FM 3-34.23)

(FM 5-116)

(FM 5-100-15)

(FM 5-71-100)

Engineer Operations 

–Echelons Above Brigade 

Combat Team

8 Jul 10

(Feb 99)

(Jun 95)

(Apr 93)

This is a new manual that encompasses engineer operations in support of all engineer 

operations above the brigade combat teams (BCTs) (division, corps, and theater). It 

consolidates and has revised three engineer FMs that provided doctrinal guidance for 

the entire spectrum of engineer operations supporting echelons above the BCT level.

Status: Published. Obtain from the Army Publishing Directorate or the Reimer Digital 

Library.

U.S. Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence 

Capabilities Development and Integration Directorate

Concepts, Organizations, and Doctrine Development Division

Doctrine Branch, Engineer Division

Engineer ngineer Doctrine octrine Update

FM 3-90.4

(*FM 3-34.2)

(*FM 3-90.12)

Combined Arms Mobility 

Operations

Pending

(Aug 00)

This is the engineer keystone manual. It encompasses all engineer doctrine; integrates 

the three engineer disciplines of combat, general, and geospatial engineering; and 

addresses engineer operations across the entire spectrum of operations.

Status: Revising manual to incorporate the engineer lines of support framework.

Estimated publishing date is 2QFY11.

FM 3-34 Engineer Operations Pending

(Apr 09)

This is a full revision, to include the renaming and renumbering of FM 3-34.2, 

Combined Arms Breaching Operations, and FM 3-90.12, Combined Arms Gap 

Crossing. Changes in the force structure have required adjustment of the tactics, 

techniques, and procedures (TTP) associated with breaching and clearance 

operations. The Marine Corps is dual-designated on this manual, which will replace 

their Marine Corps Warfighting Publication (MCWP) 3-19.3, Marine Air-Ground Task 

Force (MAGTF) Breaching Operations.

Status: To be published 2QFY11.

General Engineering

TM 3-34.48 1/2

(*FM 5-430-00-1

& 5-430-00-2)

Design of Theater of Operations 

Roads, Airfields and Helipads

Pending

Aug 94

Sep 94

This manual will serve as a reference for engineer planners in support of joint and 

theater operations in the design of roads, airfields, and helipads. This manual is 

currently dual-designated with the Air Force. The Air Force (as well as the Navy and 

Marine Corps) plans to adopt the new manual also.

Status: Estimated publishing date is 3QFY11.

TM 3-34.41 Construction Planning and 

Estimating 

New This new manual is being produced by the Navy, in coordination with the Army and 

Air Force. The manual will provide the TTP and planning factors for conducting 

construction planning at the crew leader level. The manual will also provide useful 

expeditionary construction planning factors for use by planners at all levels. 

Status: Estimated publishing date is 3QFY11.

Recently Published

ATTP 3-34.80

(FM 3-34.600)

(FM 3-34.230)

Geospatial Engineering 29 Jul 10 This full revision of FM 3-34.230, Geospatial Operations, incorporates changes as a 

result of FM 3-34, Engineer Operations, and FM 3-0, Operations. Geospatial engineering 

consists of engineer capabilities and activities that contribute to a clear understanding of 

the physical environment by providing geospatial information and service to commanders 

and staffs.

Status: Published. Obtain from the Army Publishing Directorate or the Reimer Digital 

Library.

Combat Engineering
September-December 2010 Engineer 59

Publication 

Number

Title Date Description

(and Current Status)

U.S. Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence 

Capabilities Development and Integration Directorate

Concepts, Organizations, and Doctrine Development Division

Doctrine Branch, Engineer Division

Engineer ngineer Doctrine octrine Update

General Engineering (continued)

TM 3-34.43

(*FM 3-34.451)

(*FM 5-472)

Materials Testing Pending

Dec 92

This manual will provide technical information for obtaining samples and performing 

engineering tests and calculations on soils, bituminous paving mixtures, and concrete. For 

use in military construction. The test procedures and terminology will conform to the latest 

methods and specifications of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), 

the American Concrete Institute (ACI), and the Portland Cement Association (PCA), with 

alternate field testing methods and sampling techniques when complete lab facilities 

are unavailable or impractical to use. The Marine Corps and Air Force plan to adopt this 

manual as well.

Status: Estimated publishing date is 2QFY11.

TM 3-34.65 1/2

(*FM 3-34.465)

Quarry Operations Pending

Mar 05

This manual outlines the methods and procedures used in the exploration for and 

operation of pits and quarries. It provides information on equipment required for operating 

pits and quarries and for supplying crushed mineral products, but does not cover the 

operation of the stated types of equipment. This is a collaborative effort with the Navy 

and Air Force and includes the newest technologies and current practices. There will be a 

focused staffing only for this manual.

Status: Preparing Volume II. Initial Draft staffing of both volumes 2QFY11.

This manual is a guide for planning, designing, and drilling wells. It focuses on techniques 

and procedures for installing wells and includes expedient methods for digging shallow 

water wells, such as hand-dug wells. This collaborative effort with the Navy, Air Force, and 

Marine Corps includes the newest technologies, current practices, and revised formulas.

Status: Estimated publishing date is 2QFY11.

TM 3-34.49

 (*FM 5-484)

Multi-Service Well Drilling 

Operations

Pending

Mar 94

TM 3-34.56 Waste Management New This manual addresses issues not currently integrated into FM 3-34.5, Environmental 

Considerations. The manual will address the role of waste management in support of 

deployed forces, as well as the integration of waste management throughout the operations 

process, including its critical linkage to the composite risk management process. 

Status: Estimated publishing date is 2QFY11.

Notes: Current engineer publications can be accessed and downloaded in electronic format from the Reimer Digital Library at <http://www.

adtdl.army.mil> or the MSKN Web site at <https://www.us.army.mil/suite/page/500629>. The manuals discussed in this article are currently under

development and/or recently published. Drafts may be obtained during the staffing process or by contacting the Engineer Doctrine Branch

at commercial 573-563-0003, DSN 676-0003, or <douglas.merrill@us.army.mil> or by contacting commercial 573-563-2717, DSN 676-2717, or 

<brian.davis6@us.army.mil>. The development status of these manuals was current as of 29 Oct 2010.

*Publications shown inside parentheses with an asterisk beside the number indicate the current published number, but that number will be

superseded by the new number at the beginning of the listing. Multiple manuals in parentheses will indicate consolidation into one manual.

Due to the doctrine reengineering effort, some field manuals are being realigned as general subject technical manuals (TMs). These manuals will

be numbered as TMs. Field manuals (FMs) dealing with Army tactics, techniques, and procedures (ATTP) will be renumbered as ATTPs.

U. S. Army Engineer School History Office. This Office maintains a multimedia collection of historical materials on the Engineer 

School and the Engineer Regiment. The collection—which consists 

of more than 17,000 manuals, 21,000 photos, 800 videos and tapes, 

and three million pages of documents on engineer history—includes 

information on units, equipment, organization, and operations that 

can support mission requirements and analysis efforts. The Office 

is seeking to expand its holdings on engineer units and requests 

that a copy of photographs, videos, or documents that are generated 

by units be sent to: History Office, U.S. Army Engineer School, 320 

MANSCEN Loop, Suite 043, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri 65473, 

or to <leon.usaeshistory@conus.army.mil>. The History Office also 

maintains a milBook page at <https://www.kc.army.mil/book/

groups/engineer-historian> and a web page at <http://www.wood.

army.mil/wood_cms/usaes/2332.shtml>.

Any questions should be directed to Dr. Larry Roberts at 573-563-

6109 or Dr. David Ulbrich at 573-563-6365.
60 Engineer September-December 2010

Flaming brush and debris were whipped by the afternoon breeze at a range near Contingency Operating Base Speicher, Iraq, during a Ground Torch 

System (GTS) exercise for Soldiers from 4th Platoon, 573d 

Clearance Company, 1st Engineer Battalion, 130th Engineer Brigade, White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. 

The GTS will be added to the engineers’ arsenal to combat 

improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by clearing foliage that 

can conceal the explosives along patrol routes. The system 

expels a burning gel-like fuel that covers the targeted area 

and eliminates the concealment. 

Roadside foliage makes it difficult for patrolling Soldiers 

to spot hidden IEDs. Units equipped with GTS will be able 

to eliminate that foliage and make it more difficult “for the 

enemy to get out there and hurt our people,” said the GTS 

instructor. Soldiers received in-depth training about safety 

precautions, standard operating procedures, fuel mixture, 

and factors such as atmospheric conditions that can affect 

the system’s capabilities. After that training, the Soldiers 

performed a live-fire exercise to learn what the GTS can do. 

The system is another tool the company can use to better 

accomplish the mission by helping Soldiers see threats on 

the side of the road. 

The brigade’s mission is to clear roads, and the company 

is the spearhead of that. They have to go out and make 

sure the road is cleared of all IEDs during the daytime or 

nighttime. The GTS allows them to complete their mission, 

and when the company’s mission is completed, it means the 

brigade’s mission is completed.

Specialist Zullig is a journalist serving with the 135th 

Mobile Public Affairs Detachment under the 3d Infantry 

Division in Iraq.

By Specialist Jessica D. Zullig

A 573d Clearance Company Soldier sprays foliage with 

flames during a test of the GTS.

Photo by Specialist Jessica D. Zullig

Photo by Specialist Jessica D. Zullig
September-December 2010 Engineer 61

With a comedic style reminiscent of a Bob Hope 

USO tour, the 52d Army Chief of Engineers, 

Lieutenant General Robert L. Van Antwerp, delivered the keynote address during the annual Castle Ball 

at the Vicksburg, Mississippi, Convention Center on 5 June 

2010. The ball, which consisted of Vicksburg engineer community members and 412th Theater Engineer Command 

Soldiers, was the culmination of the 412th’s Warfighter 

Seminar that started on 2 June.

Van Antwerp used his keen sense of humor to highlight 

some of the significant events currently on the way in the 

United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). For example, he talked about the Asian carp, a type of fish that 

engineers in Illinois are trying to keep from getting into the 

Great Lakes. “I am waiting for some chef to figure out how 

to cook this thing just right,” Van Antwerp said. “It eats 

everything and starves the rest of the fish out.”

He also talked about the 8, 213 individuals that USACE 

hired from the private sector at the end of 2009. “There was 

an incredible amount of talent out there, and we got a ton 

of it,” Van Antwerp said. “We are going to hire 8,000 people 

this year, and we are on track to actually exceed that ... we 

have never hired on this scale in my lifetime.” 

He then talked of modifications currently being made 

to the Panama Canal that will change economies in the 

world. A new lock system scheduled for completion in 2014 

will have a major impact on the 928 deepwater ports in 

the United States, according to Van Antwerp. “That lock is 

1,600 feet long and it is going to be about 120 feet wide,” he 

said. “The current Panamax ship carries 4,600 containers

. . . . The Panamax ship of tomorrow going through the new 

lock system will carry 12,500 containers; it is that much 

bigger.” In the future, ship designers will only design vessels that will fit the new Panama Canal lock system. The 

new Panamax ships must have a hull that is deeper by

5 feet, and all ports will be 53 feet deep, according to Van 

Antwerp, so that most U.S. ports will need to increase their 

present depths of 52 feet by 1 foot. 

As he often does at the start of a presentation, Van Antwerp assigned an audience member to be his timekeeper 

and coached her on how she should tell him that his time 

was up. When the time had elapsed, she stood up and said, 

“Chief, thank you for your general remarks; you are generally out of time.” 

Major Stalder is the deputy public affairs officer for the 

412th Theater Engineer Command at Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he has been assigned for two years. He holds a 

bachelor's in education from Washington State University 

and a master's in educational leadership from City University, Bellevue, Washington. 

By Major Jesse H. Stalder

Castle Ball: 412th T heater Engineer

 Command Warfighter Seminar

Lieutenant General 

Robert L. Van Antwerp 

interacts with audience 

members during his 

keynote address at the 

Castle Ball at the Vicksburg Convention Center 

in Vicksburg, Mississippi. 

Photo by Specialist Lisa Soule, Mobile Public Affairs Detachment