Engineer presents professional information designed to keep U.S. military and civilian engineers informed of current and emerging developments within their areas of expertise for the purpose of enhancing their professional development.
Issue link: https://engineer.epubxp.com/i/284727
Engineer 5
January–April 2014
Chief Warrant Offcer Five Scott R. Owens
Regimental Chief Warrant Offcer
Show the Way
T
here is an old Chinese curse that
says, "May you live in interesting
times." The times we are living in
now certainly are interesting, but I believe
that with turmoil also comes opportunity.
The drastically shrinking defense budget
is impacting every aspect of our opera-
tions and I'm sure this is causing many of
you to wonder about the future. Without a
doubt, the next few years will be challeng-
ing, but engineers are experts at assess-
ing and overcoming obstacles. We will
meet these challenges and help shape the
terrain of the future just as we shape the
terrain on the battlefeld. Engineer war-
rant offcers, with their years of technical
expertise and tactical experience, will be
there to advise commanders, contribute to the mission, and
be the trainers and systems integrators of emerging tech-
nologies and equipment.
As I write this, we have just concluded the Fall 2013
Engineer Regimental Command Council, but you will be
reading this as ENFORCE 2014 is kicking off. Budgetary
problems caused us to adapt and modify the venue of the
council to a virtual conference via Defense Connect Online
(DCO). ENFORCE will also be scaled down using a DCO
component so that we can conduct dialogue with the feld.
This is a good news–bad news story: the good news is that
we were able to get information out to the feld; the bad news
is that we were not able to conduct face-to-face dialogue,
which is essential for ensuring that the message relays the
correct context and enables understanding. Nothing beats
looking someone in the eye while exchanging ideas, because
you can get immediate feedback on whether your message
is getting across. For ENFORCE, I challenge you to take
this as an opportunity to engage via the alternate methods
we will set in place: DCO, teleconferences, video teleconfer-
ences, Engineer School Knowledge Network, milSuite, and
others. Thoroughly ingest the read-ahead materials, listen
to the conversations and presentations, and follow up with
us at the U.S. Army Engineer School so that we can hear
your ideas and gain your insights. Your input serves as an
azimuth check for our long-range planning.
So what does the future hold for engineer warrant off-
cers? How will the drawdown affect us? Again, this is a good
news–bad news story. Since we are currently understrength
in both warrant offcer military occupational specialties,
engineer warrant offcers will be at
about 100 percent when the initial Army
end strength targets are achieved. Addi-
tionally, the Department of the Army
is adjusting annual accession targets
slightly downward so that we do not
create too many warrant offcers and
place them at risk in the future. That's
the good news. The bad news is that
as the Army shrinks, so will our feeder
enlisted accession pool, which will make
it that much harder to reach our acces-
sion goals. Initially, this will be a ben-
eft because as quality noncommissioned
offcers fnd that their reenlistment
options are limited, many of them will
consider applying to be warrant offcers.
But once the turmoil has settled and the Army end strength
reaches equilibrium, the ratio of the enlisted feeder pool
to warrant offcer accession requirements may be insuf-
fcient to reach our targets. We will have to monitor the
trends closely and develop a plan to deal with that when
the time comes. This is just one of the things that I think
about when I wake up in the middle of the night!
To navigate through this time of change, you should
study the terrain. By that, I mean read emerging doctrine,
keep abreast of current events, and participate in milSuite
discussions and other venues of intellectual exchange. Peri-
odically check the Engineer Warrant Offcer MilBook sites
at