I was not naive enough to give myself too much credit. A tank crew assigned to instruct a general is rarely a pickup team. I had been propped up by a crack gunner, loader, and driver. Nevertheless, I enjoyed displaying the expert’s badge on my desk. And few experiences are more exhilarating than racing along at thirty miles an hour with fifty tons of iron under you.
We were trying to figure out how much practice ammunition a tank crew had to fire to become proficient. One thing we knew was that Soviet crews fired about one-tenth as many rounds in training as American crews did. The cost differential was tremendous. Every time we fired from a tank, it cost the taxpayers from $200 to $1,000, depending on the type of round. And each of our crews fired approximately one hundred rounds a year. The Army’s training technicians had designed simulators and devices like video games that would allow our crews to become proficient using less live ammo. We wanted to find out what combination of actual firing and the use of training devices produced the best performance. One tank battalion was given the maximum number of rounds. Another got fewer rounds. Another got fewer rounds still and more time on the simulator-trainers. The acid test was to take these differently prepared battalions out to the major qualification range, give them the same number of rounds, and see which did best.
The answer turned out to be “none of the above.” The battalions that did best were those with the best commanders. A good commander could motivate his men to excel under any conditions. “We’re gonna win even if they give us one lousy round” was the winning attitude. The new technologies were adopted, and they did make a difference. But we never lost sight of the reality that people, particularly gifted commanders, are what make units succeed. The way I like to put it, leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.
General Hudachek’s leadership style was that of a tough overseer. The job got done, but by coercion, not motivation. Staff conferences turned into harangues. Inspections became inquisitions. The endless negative pressure exhausted the unit commanders and staff. The 4th Mech was a capable ship, but not a happy ship. Given his customary dour mood, I was astonished one day when the general came bounding into my office and said, “Powell, you’re doing a great job. I’m going to put in a special report and see if you can’t make the next board.” The selection board for major generals was about to meet, and while I was one of the junior brigadiers in my class, a special report could give me an early shot at two stars. Hudachek called in his aide, a captain named Philip Coker, to set the report machinery in motion.
In the end, the special report came to nothing. The personnel office informed us that an officer had to be in his assignment at least sixty days, which I had not, to receive special consideration. Nevertheless, I appreciated Hudachek’s effort. It seemed to say that despite his prickly personality, if you did the job right, he would treat you right.
I seemed to be the Episcopal missionary wherever my family went. Soon after our arrival at Fort Carson, I poked around to find out where our congregation met. I was informed that Episcopal services were held Sundays at 9:00 A.M. in the Catholic chaplain’s office! The following Sunday we walked down the side aisle as the Catholics filed into the chapel for mass. We made our way to the office in the back, where eight folding chairs had been set out. We sat down, and half an hour later, the Episcopal priest showed up, a lieutenant colonel in the Chaplain Corps. He passed around a hymnal that I had never seen before and began the service. Two women strummed guitars accompanying what sounded to me more like a folk song than a hymn. I tried to get into the spirit as best I could, but yearned for the old-time religion.
After the service, I went up and introduced myself to the priest, who turned out to be Colin P. Kelly III, son of the American hero of World War II. “I’ve got a question, Father Kelly,” I said. “How have you pronounced your first name all these years?” “Coh-lin,” he said, which was an Irish variant, and considered incorrect by the British, who said “Cah-lin.” I explained how I had started out British-style but had yielded to peer pressure as a kid after his father became a household name. And then I asked, “Why do we hold our service in a Catholic priest’s office? Why don’t we have our own church?” There were too few Episcopalians, he said. I suggested that if the setting were more appealing, we might attract more. I knew that the old World War II barracks complexes of the kind we had at Carson contained wooden chapels. “Please find us one of those, Father,” I said. I also asked him to consider replacing the folksy Songs of Living Waters hymnal with something containing the old anthems like “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” He eventually found us a chapel and the service took on a more traditional flavor.
We had one child out of the nest by now. Just before we left for Fort Carson, my son, Mike, had graduated from Lake Braddock High School in Burke, Virginia. Mike had come out with us to Fort Carson that summer, but by August he was off to the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. I never tried to tell him what he should do with his life. But I did try to guide Mike. For the previous year, I had ridden herd on him to get his college applications submitted on time. I had fussed over his essays like a schoolmarm. He had been accepted at West Point and had also won a four-year Army ROTC scholarship, either of which would be a blessing for our family fortunes. I was pleased when he chose the College of William and Mary. The service academies are prestigious, and I was proud that he had been accepted to West Point. Still, I suspected that Mike would get a more rounded preparation for life in a school more broadly focused than a military academy. And should he settle on a military career, the old man had not done all that badly with his geology major and an ROTC commission.
That year, Linda entered Cheyenne Mountain High School in Colorado Springs, her third high school in three years. Somehow the uprooting did not seem to affect her. She was on her way to becoming a National Merit Scholarship finalist. We enrolled Annemarie, now eleven, in a Catholic school, the Pauline Memorial Academy. We liked the discipline the nuns provided, though they could do little to control her irrepressible nature. Annemarie became a cheerleader. She fell in love with ice skating (certainly not an inheritance of her Southern mother or Bronx father), and she took classes in the Olympic-style rink located in the Broadmoor Hotel, where she glided like a swan.
Alma expected to be as active in volunteer work at Carson as she had been on previous posts. While in Washington, she had served as president of the Armed Forces Hostess Association, which performed a popular service for families facing the anxieties of moving all over the globe. A sergeant’s wife, for example, could come to the offices of the Hostess Association in the Pentagon, and learn all about schools, hospitals, rents, and just about everything from the temperature to local religious activities at her husband’s next post. At Fort Carson, Alma was hoping to put her old audiology skills back to work at the post hospital. She was surprised, however, to run into a wary resistance among other wives to getting involved in volunteer work. We were soon to find out why.
I started hearing complaints from fellow officers that we had a co-commander at Fort Carson. While General Hudachek rode herd on his subordinates, the wives reported that Mrs. Hudachek did the same on them. The Hudacheks were a devoted couple, and the general had made his wife his partner in running the post. Ann Hudachek served prominently on all the advisory councils he had set up to oversee the commissary, the PX, the child-care center, everything. She obviously had a deep commitment to the welfare of the soldiers under her husband’s command and to their families. The rub was the brusque way both Hudacheks went about their roles. I became the lightning rod for these grievances. Finally, I decided, yes, pay the king his shilling, and the queen too, if necessary. But the situation at Fort Carson had gone too far. I had been watching it for four months and saw morale sagging. I believed that I had a responsibility to act.
An ADC is a division commander on training wheels. By Army custom, I was at Fort Carson to soak up the skills and mores for division leadership. Some command
ing generals are happy to delegate broadly to their ADCs while they sit back and watch. Hudachek stood at the other end of the continuum. I had a sense that he would have been just as happy if his two ADCs disappeared. He ran the division, and we were permitted to study at the master’s knee. Which did not make what I set out to do any easier—or wiser.
Tom Blagg, the chief of staff, sat outside Hudachek’s office and under his thumb. I told Tom that the division had serious problems, and I wanted to talk to Hudachek about how we might fix the situation.
“Colin,” Tom said, “don’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Tom went on, “its not a problem Hudachek can discuss or even admit. I’m warning you—you won’t help him. And you might hurt yourself.”
Tom was no fool, and only a fool would dismiss his counsel. Still, I had managed to navigate in some of the trickiest currents of the Pentagon. I was sure I could handle a talk with Hudachek. “Tom, I don’t have any choice,” I said. “I would be neglecting my duty if I ducked this one.”
The next morning I leaned into the general’s office. “Sir,” I said, “when you’re free I’d like to have a word with you on some training matters and about the wives.”
“Busy,” Hudachek said. I went back to my office.
Toward the end of the day, his secretary informed me, “He’s free now.”
“What is it?” Hudachek asked as I came in.
I went over a few diversionary training items. Then I started tiptoeing into the minefield. “Sir, I think we could do more with the wives. They are not as involved as they should be.” The response was a blank stare. I pushed on. “Ann has wonderful ideas. She wants to do so much for the troops and their families.” Still, a stony silence. “I think we need to find a way to pursue her interests with a little more participation by the other wives.” The conversation did not end, or even develop. It just withered.
I no sooner got in the door that night than Alma said, “What did you do?”
“Did I do something?”
“Ann Hudachek called about an hour ago and asked me over for a cup of tea. ‘Alma,’ she told me, ‘I’m so sad. The general and I are really fond of you and Colin. We thought we could at least count on you two.’” Obviously, Hudachek had called his wife about my visit as soon as I left his office. Strike one? I nevertheless continued going about my duties, relishing my work with the troops, trying to put post gossip, suspicion, and intrigue behind me.
While I was at Fort Carson, the Army was engaged in a hot debate about how best to check on unit readiness. The traditionalists favored the Annual General Inspection. I had been a battalion exec on my second Vietnam tour when we had to carry out one of these exhaustive reviews in the middle of a war. To me an inspection once a year was the spring cleaning approach to preparedness. Beat the rugs, wash the curtains, clean out the attic and the cellar. Look great the day the inspector arrives and hope you don’t fall apart afterward. And, should the enemy attack, pray that they do it just after the inspection when you are in peak form, because two weeks later you will be back to your bad habits.
The new school of preparedness preached that inspections should be an ongoing process, instead of one gigantic exercise in breaking starch. The proponents favored hitting a company here, a company there, unannounced, until over the course of a year a whole division would be inspected. Every unit would have to be on its toes for twelve months rather than just two weeks out of the year. Not surprisingly, unit commanders favored the old system. Nobody welcomes a surprise attack on an unprepared position. I, however, was a convert to the new thinking. While the debate was under way in the Pentagon, I tried to extend it to Fort Carson. I told Jack Hudachek that this was the way to go. He heard me out, but was not buying. Strike two?
One afternoon, after I had been with the division for about nine months, the commanding officer of one of the brigades showed up at my office wearing a troubled frown. I asked him in and closed the door. He told me that a sergeant in one of his battalions had come to him charging that the man’s commanding officer had become sexually involved with the sergeant’s wife. Such conduct is devastating to morale and taken seriously in the Army. As the experienced officer that I thought I had become, I should have turned the matter over for investigation to the post lawyers or the Criminal Investigation Division. Instead, I decided to look into it myself. I told the brigade commander to bring the suspect battalion commander to me. My hope was to find out if the guy did it, and if so, to advise General Hudachek that the officer be relieved of command and transferred. In short, hand the boss a solution instead of a can of worms.
But the script went haywire. The officer denied all. I now had no choice but to take Hudachek the worms. “Fine. Thank you,” was all he said. “I’ll take care of it.” He then did the professional thing: he turned the matter over to the lawyers and the CID. The subsequent investigation nailed the officer, down to motel receipts for his trysts. Hudachek never called me in again on this matter, never discussed it, never pointed out that I might have handled it better. Just “Thank you. I’ll take care of it.” Strike three?
By May 20, 1982, I had completed my first year at Fort Carson. The man who ten months before had wanted to put my name before the major general selection board called me into his office. “Sit down,” Hudachek said. He was a chain-smoker, and the cigarette trembled in his hand as he handed me a two-page document. This was my annual efficiency report. My future hung on these pages. When I finished reading it, I said, “Is this your considered judgment?” He nodded. “You realize the effect it will have,” I said. “This report will probably end my career.” Oh, no, Hudachek protested. I was coming along fine, he assured me. And he would be rating me again next year. “The next report will take care of you,” he added. Unconvinced, I excused myself, got up, and left.
Army efficiency reports are written in code words. If you don’t know the code, you cannot crack the meaning. For example, one box reads, “Promote ahead of contemporaries.” Another reads, “Promote with contemporaries.” And a third, “Do not promote.” The choices seemed clear enough. But by now, these reports had become so inflated that you needed to have box one checked to remain in the running. Hudachek had checked me in box two. Damaging, but not lethal. The narrative evaluation, however, was nearly fatal. He had praised my performance solely as a “trainer.” My command potential was ignored. I had not been sent to Fort Carson to become a trainer, but to qualify as a division commander. I had attended divisional prep school, and in his judgment, had flunked.
Still, Hudachek did not have the last word. He was the “rater.” My report still had to be completed by a “senior rater.” That officer was Lieutenant General M. Collier Ross, deputy commander of Forces Command, a man over two thousand miles away in Atlanta, Georgia, whom I had met exactly once. Two weeks later, I opened an envelope from FORSCOM with a certain trepidation. General Ross repeated Hudachek’s praise of my ability as a “trainer” and added, “He deserves full consideration to be a principal staff officer in a major command headquarters. The rater considers this more Colin’s forte than command at this time and I concur….” The words were damning enough, but Ross also had to check a set of blocks. Block one meant top of the heap, block two, some risk to promotion, and block three, forget it. Ross gave me a block three. This was the coup de grâce. Yet, I could not blame General Ross. He had no real knowledge of my performance other than Hudachek’s opinion. At least, Alma got a promotable rating. “Powell has a truly gracious wife,” Ross had written, “fully capable of representing the Army and supporting her husband wherever he may be assigned.”
I went to bed that night with my head in a whirl. This was the worst professional judgment passed on me in twenty-four years in the Army. Bernie Rogers had warned at charm school that 50 percent of us were not going to make two stars. I now knew which half I fell into. At GOMO, the General Officer Management Office in the Pentagon, young lieutenant colonels who move generals around
would look at this report and think, this walk-on-water soldier has finally been punctured. Powell turned out to be just a political general. Can’t hack it in the field. Shy Meyer would see the report and shake his head; Colin’s been away from the troops too long. And the next promotion board would look at an unblemished record until now, and wonder, what happened to this guy? I slept poorly that night.
The next morning, however, I went into the office and I felt fine. Just as I had learned on that hillside in Vietnam after witnessing my first death in battle, things always look better in the morning. I am capable of self-pity. But not for long. I stopped in to see Tom Blagg and told him what had happened. “I warned you,” Tom said. The trouble had begun with my going to Hudachek about the wives, he believed. To which I added, yes, and arguing with Jack about annual inspections, and my handling of the officer involved with the sergeant’s wife. That one drove the nail into the coffin. I had blown it, I told Tom. Still, I had no regrets. I had done what I thought was right. Hudachek had done what he thought was right and graded me accordingly. I was not going to whine or appeal, get mad at Hudachek, or go into a funk. I would live with the consequences.
I went on enjoying my duties. But part of my brain started disengaging itself from the Army. One night I sat down at my desk at home and retooled my résumé for the civilian market. I was not going to hang around until forced to retire. Just the year before, I could have been undersecretary of the Army!
It was an odd time for me, one foot still in the service, the other ready to step out, but where? I thought I would give GOMO a call to make sure I was going to stay at Fort Carson for another year. I got in touch with a lieutenant colonel, who said, “Funny you should call; we were just about to get in touch with you. We’ll call back tomorrow.” Don’t call us, we’ll call you—it always sounds like a brush-off. Now I was totally in the dark. Was this going to be good news or the ax? I spent another uneasy night.
My American Journey Page 33