Gen. George William Casey, Jr.
Chief of Staff of the Army
TRADOC Change of Command / GEN Wallace Retirement
Dec. 8, 2008
Thanks everybody for coming out here and helping us bid farewell to a great Army family and to honor the service of one of the Army's great command teams, Scott and Sharon Wallace. Some of you know Scott and Sharon were high school sweethearts, married 39 years ago this month. So enjoy those flowers, Sharon. It's probably the best you're gonna do. [Laughter] Today, we pay tribute to their nearly four decades of dedicated service to this country.
Before I get started here I'd like to recognize just a few of our distinguished guests. Secretary Gates, thank you. Thank you for recognizing how important this Training and Doctrine Command is to our whole Army and the impact that they have.
Secretary Pete Geren, thank you for your leadership. It's great to see you down here.
Mike and Deborah Mullen, as I said inside, Mike and Deborah have taken it on themselves to learn more about the Army, and they have been of great service in focusing people's attention on the challenges facing our Families and our Wounded Warriors. So thanks for being down here with us.
I see two of my predecessors here. There may be more, but Gordon Sullivan and Carl Vuono, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming down. And as I'm looking over at them I see the service component commands for JFCOM: John Corley, John Greenert, and Hondo Campbell and their spouses. It's great to see you down here.
I think I've seen two of the former TRADOC Commanders. I'm going to ask them to stand and be recognized. Carl Vuono and I saw Don Starry earlier. These folks have shaped the direction of the Army that we have today. [Applause]. Thank you very much.
Also, I'd like to take just a second to recognize Scott and Sharon's family that are here. Their daughter Tara came in from California with her daughter Allison, who's all bundled up looking very sharp there. Son Todd is from Louisiana with his wife Meaghan and their son Kyler. And Scott's parents, Bill and Ellie. It's good to see you. Bill, it's worth noting, was in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and Scott's brothers, Rick and Tom, also served in the Air Force. They're here today with their families. So thank you all three for your service, and thank you for not talking your brother into joining the Air Force. [Laughter] Finally, Sharon's mom, Jean, and her sister Pat. Scott, I know there are more family and friends here. I'm going to leave the rest of those to you.
When you look at the span of Scott's career, you can't help but notice a central theme. Here is a man who made a living leading and training soldiers, and then teaching others to lead and train. That we're standing here today on this field is a testament to how well Scott did that.
With the rather notable exception of a "hardship tour" at the Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey, California, Scott's time as a soldier was spent either in command or in leveraging that command experience in the training environment as a coach and mentor to others - me included. I'm one of Scott's products. He's impacted our Army in ways that few others have.
After graduation from West Point, Scott reported to Fort Meade, Maryland, to the 2nd Squadron, 6th Cavalry Regiment. It's a little known fact about Scott's career that this indeed turned out to be the closest he ever came to serving in the Pentagon.
As has already been mentioned, Scott's one of our last leaders who saw service in Vietnam. He spent a combat tour there in 1972 as an advisor and a trainer. As it turned out, this was a formative experience both for Scott and for our Army.
Returning from overseas, he began the first of his nine commands. A range of commands that would include some of our most storied units and training centers: company command in the 4th Battalion, 68th Armor at Fort Bragg; squadron command in the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Germany; 55th Colonel of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (he had the honor to stand that formation down in Germany at the end of the Cold War); commander of the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Hood; and commander of V Corps in Germany and Iraq.
On the training side, he's commanded the Operations Group at the National Training Center, which is where I first met him; the National Training Center itself; the Joint Warfighting Center across the river at Suffolk at JFCOM, a position that I had the opportunity to relieve him of; the Combined Arms Center; and here at TRADOC.
So with all his experience in leading and training, it's no surprise that Scott has argued persuasively that our conduct of military operations must remain commander-centric and include a thorough understanding of the human dimension of combat.
Let me put some of Scott's contributions in perspective for you. Thirty-five years ago the Army established Training and Doctrine Command. It came into existence at a crucial time, just as the Army was shifting away from Vietnam and adjusting to the realities of an all-volunteer force.
TRADOC's first commander was a general named Bill DePuy. General DePuy landed with the 9th Division shortly after D-Day and ended the war as a battalion commander at the ripe old age of 25. Before assuming command here at Fort Monroe 28 years later, he had served as a division commander in Vietnam and as the Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. No stranger was he to the overhaul of bureaucracies. He had written years earlier, "There have only been two modes of life in the Pentagon: preparation for the next reorganization and recovery from the last."
So in 1973 - just about the time that Scott was taking command of Charlie Company, 4-68 Armor, DePuy was taking charge of TRADOC. He was a man out to revitalize how the Army fought, trained, and developed equipment. At this critical juncture in our history, it was DePuy's TRADOC that was asking the fundamental question, "Just how does this Army fight'"
TRADOC's answer came in 1976 with the publication of Field Manual 100-5, Operations. It was perhaps General DePuy's crowning achievement in a very long and distinguished career.
The manual was informed by the 1973 October War in the Middle East, and it spurred us to think hard about the Army's role in future warfare. It marked a significant shift in our focus as an Army. DePuy explained the significance of this manual in a paper he sent to the Army Chief of Staff at that time, Fred Weyand. "In a sense," he wrote, "this manual takes the Army out of the rice paddies of Vietnam and places it on the Western European battlefield against the Warsaw Pact."
Now the merits of Bill DePuy's efforts lay not in the details of the 1976 doctrine but in the idea that doctrine serves as the operational concept of warfare that drives everything that the Army does - how it trains, how it organizes itself, and how it equips itself. And as the TRADOC Commander, Bill DePuy placed doctrine front and center so that the Army could adapt to meet the challenges that it faced.
Today, we face new challenges. Because we remain a doctrine-based Army, General Scott Wallace led the effort over the past few years to develop and publish our latest capstone doctrine, Field Manual 3.0, Operations, to drive our transformation today. This doctrine describes an overarching operational concept for an Army operating in an era of persistent conflict. Army forces will simultaneously apply offense, defense, and stability operations to seize and retain the initiative and achieve decisive results. It will guide us into the 21st Century. Scott Wallace carefully crafted this document, and he is in many ways the Bill DePuy of this generation. [Applause]
This is also an occasion for me to recognize the impressive contributions that the men and women of TRADOC make every day to our Army - contributions for which we have the Wallaces in large part to thank. The scope and scale of what TRADOC does for the Army and for our soldiers is phenomenal. From recruiting ... to basic training ... to 32 schools spread across 16 installations ... teaching over 3,000 courses to half a million soldiers every year ... to the Futures Center ... the men and women of this command can be proud of what they do for our Army every day. Make no mistake about it ... TRADOC is the architect of the Army.
As Scott said in his incoming remarks three years ago, the men and women of TRADOC have shown that "one's contribution to the fight is not measured by proximity to the enemy. It's measured by being fully engaged and fully dedicated" in an effort to empower the soldier and help him succeed.
Now, Scott admits that he adheres to a simple but elegant leadership philosophy - that of Dr. Seuss. A quote from The Lorax is his favorite, and it captures the importance he places on selfless service and commitment. It goes like this: "Things won't get better unless you care a whole, awful lot. Nothing's going to get better. It's not." Scott and Sharon Wallace care a whole, awful lot. Caring about soldiers and families and then doing something about it are what the Wallaces have done for nearly four decades. Their time here at TRADOC is no exception.
With all this talk about Scott, it's important to remember that he is only one-half of this great command team, and not necessarily the better half. [Laughter] Sharon's been serving alongside Scott since the Fort Bragg days. She's been a Family Readiness Group leader at multiple levels and a dedicated supporter of military communities across the United States and Germany. In recognition of Sharon's tireless efforts of volunteer service as an Army spouse, she was recently awarded the Margaret C. Corbin Award for 2008, TRADOC's highest award for volunteers. To her, serving others is a way of giving back and leaving things better than she found them. This has been Sharon's calling. And what is more, she's led others along that same path. So Sharon, thank you very much for all you've done for our soldiers and families. [Applause]
Today, we also welcome Scott's successor, Marty Dempsey, and his wife, Deanie.
On this date in 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor, our country declared war on Japan, formally entering World War II. We are at war again today. It's a different enemy and a much different war. Marty Dempsey knows the stakes in this struggle, and he knows the challenges ahead. To lead TRADOC as it continues to make a difference in this fight, he'll bring with him a wealth of timely and relevant experience.
Most of all, Marty knows that we will succeed because of our people. We often say that people are our Army's asymmetric advantage. Nowhere is it more important to understand that than here at TRADOC. Scott Wallace has reminded us that it's all about the soldier. Marty Dempsey will ensure that "Victory (continues) to Start Here."
So let me close with a short story about Scott that's really become legend across our Army. The night the V Corps tactical operations center was to break down and position itself to control the corps attack into Iraq, Scott assembled the men and women of the Victory Corps in a huge tent that was the ops center. As you can imagine, the next days were fraught with uncertainty and weighed heavily on the minds of the soldiers. Scott, looking to steady the force for the battle the next day, stood in front that night and roared, "I am William Wallace!" According to the soldiers and leaders present, from that moment there was no question of their success. Such was their confidence in their leader. William Scott Wallace, I can think of no greater tribute to an Army leader than the striking victory that followed.
So good luck to you and Sharon. Thank you very much for what you've done for your Army and your country. We wish you good luck and Godspeed. Thank you. [Applause]
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