Reflections

Reflections (1)

2014-10-18T14:22:21-06:00

Here and below I will be posting my Reflections starting now - at age 87 - on my life and works, their consequences, as well as my observations on larger issues of the times which influenced my military career, technological and public interests and accomplishments while I lived.

I have also added a section called Hindsight, where I comment on how things might have been different had I made different decisions.

Reflections (2)

2014-10-18T14:23:03-06:00

The Rapidly Changing World in my Lifetime

During my 87 years of life, the world has changed greatly - mostly for the better, but also for many worse trends.

The best trends have been in food production, medicine, and global individual to individual communications - the Internet. But the worst trends have included growing to 7 Billion population, which will continue to strain resources - including potable water, and foster future wars over resources, even more so than over ideologies.

The worst trends include the increasing means of destruction by nation-states from nuclear weapons owned by many states (so far), to the growing availability of weapons individuals can use, while causing widespread havoc.

While I am not yet convinced that 'global warming' is caused - or whose effects can be mitigated - by the behavior of humans, there is no doubt that the world is being stressed by extremes of weather and its consequences.

Many of the greatest changes have had very mixed results.

While the dramatic rise of the global Internet, that allows individuals to communicate to and from other individuals, almost at any spot on the earth 'one to many' at very low real costs, has been hailed as a boon for mankind - at the same time it has permitted and enabled individuals to spread falsehoods, disseminate personal secrets, and steal valuable intangibles. The long cherished dependency on a free press and multiple 'news' organizations to keep the truth behind 'news' relatively accurate, is giving way to a global babble of opinions and voices.

Reflections (3)

2014-10-19T13:59:17-06:00

Why Did I Get Involved With Colorado Springs Centennial Celebrations and Start the Revitalization of Old Colorado City as an Historic Project?

In 1975, three years after I had retired from 27 years of military service, I was disturbed by the announcement printed in the Colorado Springs Gazette by Mayor Andy Marshal that, since the Council could not find anyone willing to step up and volunteer to organize a Colorado Centennial/US Bicentennial celebration for 1976 so the City might have to just 'pass' on these historic landmarks. Three prominent local citizens had already made feeble attempts to get things started, but resigned. I had already overheard Bill Smart, big developer tell a roomful of local businesspersons say "We can't afford a Centennial Celebration. The city is not in good shape"

That made me mad. So I visited the Mayor in his office behind closed doors. I said "No way will I let Colorado Springs, the 2d largest city in Colorado and my home town ignore the 200th Birthday of the Nation and the 100th Birthday of the State of Colorado I added "I can organize both celebrations with one hand tied behind my back, better than all your city VIPs put together. The only thing that the new people and the old timers have in common are the "Good Old Days that Never Were." I'll volunteer to them both for nothing" And I left. Took 3 minutes.

Andy, who pretty much knew I had been the ass-kicking Chief of Staff of Fort Carson, where we had pioneered what it took to make an All Volunteer Army - requiring a large component of coordination and cooperation with State, County, and City governments - and that I was native -sort of - having grown up on Wood Avenue - where he lived. He lnew I was related to recently deceased business-successful and prominent civic leader Arleen Hughes.

So he took my offer to the City Council, which breathed a sigh of relief and voted to appoint me . But in typical parsemonious fashion - the city begging poverty after the 1973 first nationwide Gas Shortage had reduced Tourism substantially - authorized me a paltry $6,000 which they figured I would use to just hire a parttime secretary-assistant.

Thats what kicked it all off. Not only the year long 1976 twin Celebrations held but it spearheaded a radically new approach to revitalizing the entire run down Westside and its Colorado Avenue commercial district, which is still (2015) going on. (today called "Old Colorado City" which is also now a National Historic District. The first in Colorado Springs.)

These undertakings are detailed in the Other Careers section of this Legacy.net Web Site.

But why did I do it? What motivated me? Especially since I was hardly - on a retired Colonel's pay and with no large estate - in the position to just throw around my personal savings.

On Reflection - I think it stemmed from several characteristics I have always possessed - for better and for worse - most of my life.

1. I have always had a Celtic imagination - I can think up new or better ways to do things.

2. The combination of my instilled West Point values makes me think, whenever Government is involved, especially at public expense, that there should be a payoff of the PUBLIC, and not just PRIVATE interests.

3. In the 4 years after my formal Army Retirement in 1973 as I became knowledgeable in how both government and local business worked I was increasingly unimpressed with BOTH local business AND local elected governments. Even though most local governments - City and County - were filled with Conservative Republican-oriented officials I saw almost NO imagination at work. It was as if, after Colorado Springs became a benficiary of the large Defense Department expenditures in the County - the AFA, Fort Carson, and Norad - the business 'community' no longer knew how to build wealth in the County, or make up for setbacks - like the 1973 national gas shortages that would impact at least Tourism.

4. I saw that the Centennial/Bicentennial year COULD become an opportunity for new initiatives. A Beginning, not End.

5. I always had an interest in tradition and history, from the days I lived in the historic "Church Castle" in Denver as a teen, which showed me the commercial value of 1890's Architecture, even in run down parts of Denver. Colorado Springs had destroyed its downtown history through ham-handed Urban Renewal. Yet there was still a corner - the West Side - of Colorado Springs which had the remnants of our Frontier and Gold Rush Past.

6. I brought into Retirement a whole series of new perpectives on national trends that my 4 years 'Inventing' a new Volunteer Army at Carson brought me. It was NOT too much to say that my 'Field Manuals' as Chief of Staff for attracting and undertaking changes in the 'new' soldiers we would be absorbing, included Tofflers "Future Shock", "Neither Marx Nor Jesus", "The Medium is the Message", "The Greening of America" and "Nasbits "Megatrends" A vision of a rapidly changing Future, not just a celebration of a local Past.

7. After 27 years Military Service with the last 4 years, as a senior officer, managing a large post-division staff reinventing the Army via Fort Carson, I knew how to get things done - both inside the Army, and I was confident I could apply also to outside Civilian Organizations.

Turning Down Offer From General Rogers

2014-10-17T20:20:19-06:00

THE OFFER FROM MAJOR GENERAL ROGERS I TURNED DOWN

It was the summer of 1971. As a full Colonel I was Chief of Staff of both the 4th Mechanized Infantry Division and of Fort Carson and its myriad units. A position which Maj Gen Rogers, the Commanding General of both had elevated me to from my having been the G-3 Plans and Operations Officer even while I was not yet promoted to full Colonel from Lt Col - though I was on the promotion list

That was a pretty high accolade, for he picked me over all the other 10 Colonels, and about 30 Lt Colonels on the 28,000 soldier Post. Four of them were commanders of 4,000 man Brigades and the Division Artillery. Gen's Rogers (Commanding General) and Dewitt Smith (Deputy Commanding General), with my help had been working for 18 months on turning the Fort Carson drafted-soldier command into an Army that would be attractive enough - both in the appeal of the trained fighting units and Army life on the Post - to fill up the first 'All Volunteer Army' since before WWII. I had been, nominally responsible for the Training and Combat Readiness Plans as G-3, had developed advanced but challenging Adventure Training' to turn soldiers who had spent combat tours in Vietnam and were familiar with fighting insurgents in the jungle and via heliborne operations - to turn them into all-Mechanized Army units fit to face Soviet Armored Divisions on the plains of Europe.

Fort Carson and Gen Rogers had pioneered and succeeded so brilliantly, even in the face of Army wide anti-Vietnam anti-Draft, and Racially tenseness, that both active and retired senior Army officers and civilian secretaries, Congressmen, experienced military news reporters and columnists, and even high foreign European Defense Civilian officials, visited Fort Carson to see how we did it. Even the son of George Patton, a Major General, visited, and I managed to scare him when I drove him over the steepest slopes at Carson in an M113 Armored Personal Carrier that even one of his cherished heavy Tanks couldn't negotiate.

I knew that Rogers, who had arrived in 1969 as a newly appointed Major General, would be in great demand on his next assignment after the word of Fort Carson's VOLAR success spread. It came quicker than even I thought. He was put on orders to go to the Pentagon and head up the Army's Legislative Liason staff - which was there to education and advise Congress on what the needs of the Army were - to support a new all-Volunteer Army.

To my surprise Rogers offered me the opportunity to join him in Washington at the Pentagon. He would get me ordered there.

I had two considerations to weigh. First of all, young son David was enrolled in costly Fountain Valley School - a superior Prep school. We were able to afford it because he lived on Post with us, and commuted there daily as a day student. If we moved to the Washington DC area, no way could I, on a Colonel's pay afford it if he a resident student. He already had been bounced around while I was assigned to West Point as an instructor, and in Graduate School in New Jersey. He had only a year and a half to reach graduation in good academic shape to enter a wide variety of good colleges.

And wife Patsy would be faced by yet-another major move with our three kids to the Washington DC area.

The second significant consideration was that I was already in line to Command a full three or four Mech Infantry Battalion Brigade at Fort Carson 4-5,000 men if I stayed. A major step up in my career that might end up with a general's star on my collar, and fit to command a Division.

So I declined the offer, even knowing Rogers was headed for the top of the Army. Indeed he was. After his Army Liason position as a 2 star general, he was rapidly promoted to three stars and then made the Four Star Chief of Staff of the Army. Following that he was moved to Europe and made the 4 Star Supreme Commander of multinational NATO.

Had I stayed on Bernie Rogers team, he would have put one or two stars on my shoulder before he and I retired after 30 or more years service.

Tempting, but I think I made the right decision - both for my family especially David's future. And I was given command of the 2 Brigade - with three Mech Infantry Battalions, and one tank Battalion, at Carson, a year later. A big step up for me.

Postscript

Several years later neither Generals Bernie Rogers nor Dewitt Smith - who had pressed to make me Chief of Staff for Rogers - faulted me for my decision not to follow Gen Rogers as he rose to the top. In fact both of them heartily endorsed the nomination LTGen Jack Cushman, under whom I never served, gave me in 2001 for me to be named as a Distinguished Graduate of West Point. Which honor I received in 2004.