One Thousand and One
Moslem Nights

This is a true story.  It has all the elements that for eons untold have both blessed and plagued  humankind: love and hate, accomplishment and failure, inanity and relevance, leaders with vision and those in the dark.  It has romance, and it has enmity.

This story has an international setting.  Events unfold in the US and in Egypt that twine lives in a human drama to engineer a project whose goal is peace, buts whose instruments are for war.

It started about twenty five years ago, as I write it down today.  I use actual names where persons are likely now deceased, or I have only good things to say about them.  I use an assumed name if the person may still be alive, might sue me for mentioning them, or if I don't remember a person's name. 

I tell it as I remember it, so if any participant still alive and functioning remembers parts of it differently, just let me know, and I'll include your version as well.

Peace Vector

The Peace Vector programs were about delivering F-16 aircraft to Egypt.  In all there were six Peace Vector programs for Egypt - each Peace Vector being a fleet of F-16's on a separate base.  As of this story, Peace Vector I and Peace Vector II had been completed, and Peace Vector III was in progress, (also known affectionately as PV-III.)  The Peace Vector programs were a result of the Camp David Accords, which was an agreement that President Jimmie Carter had negotiated between Israel and Egypt in 1978 that basically promised that in exchange for Egypt declaring peace on Israel, the US would give to Egypt the same amount of US aid that it gave Israel.

Not long after Anwar Sadat, then President of Egypt, signed the Camp David Accords, he was assassinated.  His Vice President, Hosni Mubarrak, took over the reins of government and clamped an iron fist over Egypt, effectively stifling all dissent.  Still, there were almost daily assassination attempts on some government official or another.   So there continued to be seething unrest in the general population.

Now, the Camp David Accords did not mean that the US just handed over billions of dollars to the Egyptians.  Rather, the US government set up a Foreign Military Sales account in favor of the Egyptians, credited that account with whatever we gave Israel for the year.  The US Military then built projects and bought equipment for Egypt, charged to that account.  Egypt never saw the cash – just equipment and facilities.  The US has a “Buy American” provision, for our Military Aid, and this makes sure a maximum involvement of US companies and services on these projects.   

The bulk of the Camp David Accord's money was to buy new F-16 aircraft – aircraft made in America.  Being that the F-16 is a US Air Force aircraft, the US Air Force was in charge of the Peace Vector program.  But some of that money had to be allocated for infra-structure upgrade, and some of the money for training the Egyptians. 

The US Army's Corp of Engineers was the construction agent for the US Air Force.  My outfit's area of responsibility was the Middle East and Africa, which included Egypt, so we were assigned the task of upgrading the Egyptian infrastructure required to support F-16 aircraft.  

Myself

I was an American civilian civil engineer working on military projects in the US Army's Corps of Engineers.  When I wasn't overseas on assignment, I worked in the US home office in the contract administration branch performing construction contract modifications, and “other duties as assigned.” 

We all had a specialty assignment - that's just the way the Army is organized.  Mine, however, seem to focus on "other duties as assigned."  I was normally assigned difficult projects nobody else seem to want or know how to deal with.  My forte was problem solving - the bigger and more complex the problem, the better I liked it, and the brighter my light shined when I took over and unsnarled bottlenecks and moved things forward to completion. 

I always tried to coordinate with everyone involved, and tried to avoid stepping on some else's toes when expediting things.  But if someone became obstinate or an obstacle to progress, I wouldn't hesitate to go around them, or over their head, or cut them out of the picture altogether.  The downside of expediting in that manner was that I had made some enemies along the way.

I had a well-deserved reputation for being thorough while at the same time expeditiously getting things done, and doing it right the first time.  I shaved off time by avoiding the official pipeline – which consisted of writing a memo and waiting for a response.  Instead I personally hand-walked requests through the chain, and coordinated eyeball-to-eyeball, or, tête-à-tête (literally, tit to tit), as the sexy French would have termed it. 

I found out early in my career that I could shave weeks, and even months off of standard completion times by this personal attention.  For unusual or difficult assignments, when asked how long it might take, I always gave a duration that was three or four times as long as I thought I might need.  My boss would slice that in half, which always left me twice the time I thought I might need.  Then I always brought  the assignment to conclusion “early,”  making me look like a real go-getter and “can-do” kind of guy.

But you could also compare me to any other troubleshooter in the outfit, and I was always at the top of the heap.  I test out on the Myers-Briggs and the Keirsey Temperament tests as an INTJ, or as Kiersey designates it – a mastermind.  It fits me well, and I find problem solving fun and easy.  It excites me rather than stress me out.  I always thought I got paid a lot for what came easy and enjoyable to me.

If there was anything that stressed me, it was lots of people milling around me, making idle chatter about nothing, without a purpose or a goal – as in a party. 

Peace Vector III

There were no existing facilities in Egypt which could house and service the Peace Vector III fleet of F-16 aircraft being manufactured.  Prior to the Camp David Accords, the Egyptian Air Force used Russian MIGS, which had large, low-pressure tires and could accommodate rough, low-grade runways.  Egypt and Russia had a falling out, and the US was aggressively widening the riff with the offer of sophisticated US aircraft.  The F-16, however, had small, high-pressure tires that required a smooth, strong, hard-surface runway to operate off of.  In addition, special facilities were required to maintain the complex aircraft, and its ordinances and electronics.   

The PVIII F-16 aircraft fleet was to be stationed at a bombed-out airbase in the northeast corner of Egypt near the Suez Canal.  The US was pushing the Egyptians to allow the US to build a turnkey air base for them.  However, the Egyptians wanted to be the ones to do all the work on constructing new air bases to accommodate the F-16 fleets.  The Egyptians weren't dumb, and one of the political issue for them was - the more money they directly controlled on construction, the more money they could skim off the project.  This was not an indictment of Egypt, just a universal truth, no matter who was involved.

The Americans and Egyptians compromised on who was to build the PV III air base, deciding it would be a joint venture, and a test to see whether the Egyptian side could in fact build to the standard required for the F-16 aircraft.  A joint US-Egyptian task force was formed between the US Air Force and the Egyptian Air Force.  As the construction agent for the US Air Force, the US Army Corps of Engineers was made a member of the task force because they would be supervising the design and construction of the specialized F-16 facilities, while the Egyptian side would design and build the runways, taxiways, and other facilities not specific to the F-16, such as offices, general maintenance, hardened facilities, housing, barracks, and such. 

Adrian

He was a Ukrainian by ethnicity, and perhaps by birth.  One thing I learned quickly was never say The Ukraine was a part of Russia.  He was about ten years older than me.  I knew him from the decade before when we were involved in a very large project in Saudi Arabia.  He was very much like me in temperament, which is why we probably got along well.  He never got too excited, always cool, pleasant to deal with, thought through processes thoroughly and had a reputation for accomplishing missions.  He was the guy in charge of the US Army Corps of Engineers' effort on the Peace vector III program. 

I was not involved in the early stages of this program, though I was aware of it - because it was becoming the largest project in my outfit.  I keep myself generally aware of everything that goes on in the office, which often allows me to step in late in many projects without much of a learning curve. 

As the program managers began to solidify the program details, they began to encounter significant delays that impacted infra-structure completion, The F-16 aircraft were already being manufactured, and if the airbase wasn't ready to receive them, there would be hell to pay.  

Adrian was the one who requested I be assigned to start up and run the field operations.  It was going to be difficult enough, and he wanted someone who could expedite everything that could be expedited, and cope with the inevitable changes and adjustments that were going to occur.  As I brought myself up to speed on the project, it quickly became abundantly clear that this would be one difficult, complex project with many entities involved in the decision making.  To complicate the matter even more, the US side secretly wanted the Egyptian side to fail so the US side could build all the facilities.

I made it clear, however, that my mission and effort would be to succeed, not fail.  So under my watch the Egyptians would get a fair shake at succeeding.  This wasn't going to be easy, because the Egyptian Air Force was not my direct client.  My direct client was the US Air Force.  The official chain of command required US Army Corps of Engineer communiqués intended for the Egyptian Air Force to be signed off (and invariably modified) by the US Air Force.  This then was further complicated when the Egyptian Air Force announced that the Egyptian Army Corps of Engineers would be their construction agent. 

While many new facilities were either 100% Egyptian responsibility, or 100% American responsibility, a considerable number had mixed responsibility - with the American designing the facility, the Egyptians building it, and the US resident engineer monitoring the construction.  The US Army Corps of Engineer resident engineer on-site would need to coordinate directly with his Egyptian counterpart in the Egyptian Army Corps of Engineers.  But official protocol would require all official correspondence between them to be routed through their respective Air Forces (with the invariable modifications introduced) making coordination very difficult, with a potential to severely delay completion. 

To shorten the decision chain, Adrian pushed for a US-Egyptian Joint Management Engineer Team (JMET) to be created, to consist of two co-chiefs, one from each air force, and two co-deputy chiefs, one from each Corps of Engineers.  All of the Joint management Engineer Team were to reside on-site, and the co-chiefs would be given complete authority to resolve engineer problems on-site.

One of the things I like about working under Adrian was that he pushed to give me unusual field authority, and he pushed hard to have the field office nearly autonomous.  In effect, he made me his deputy, and was getting ready to shove all his authority, and then some, over my way. I learned much later there was a reason for this,  Adrian was dying of cancer.  He passed away a few years later, still in my eyes as one of the few engineers I admired.  I salute you, Adrian, wherever you may be - in that great engineering project in the sky.      

Egypt

I was temporarily assigned as the deputy co-chief of the Joint management Engineer Team, which also held the title as the US resident engineer on the construction site.   

I was the first of the JMET to arrive in Egypt for this project.  I borrowed a loaner vehicle from our Area office in Cairo, which, at the request of the US Air Force,  wasn't to be involved in the project.  The US Air Force objected to our Egypt Area Office being involved because the Joint Management Engineer Team made their participation redundant.

I drove up to the construction site to evaluate it, and found it to be the bombed out air base it was purported to be.  The base had been bombed out of commission by the Israelis years before, when the Russians were there.  A few inoperable Russian MIG jets were still on the base.  The perimeter fence had gaps in it, so security was essentially compromised.  The very small village of Abu Suwayr was located adjacent to the main gate of the air base, but there were no US usable facilities in the village. 

Initially there was no Egyptian military presence on the site, but in the following weeks, an Egyptian general was pulled out of retirement and made the base commander, and an Egyptian General in the Egyptian Army Corps of Engineers began relocating his brigade of Egyptian Engineers and construction soldiers.

Ismailia

The nearest existing living accommodations that came close to meeting US standards were in the very quaint town of Ismailia, on the Suez Canal, which is also where the headquarters of the Suez Canal Authority is located.  Ismailia was less than fifteen miles from the airbase.  The road between them was along a tree-lined, fresh-water canal that ran from the Nile river to Lake Timsah (Crocodile Lake).  There were locks along this canal to control the flow of fresh water from the Nile. 

The trees lining the canal banks were huge and old.  A drive down the road bordering the canal was picturesque and rustically romantic, but also dangerous from the large buses plying the narrow, two-lane road, with misaligned frames that had the buses crabbing along the road taking up a lane and a half.  There were roads on both sides of the canal, but each road was a two-way road.  The south side road didn’t have bus traffic, but you had to cross over a pretty rickety bridge to get to it.  So most of the time we used the north side road,   

I initially stayed at the Movenpick, a Swiss-managed, nice, upscale hotel near the Cairo airport about 70 miles away, and would drive up to the site once or twice a week to see if the Egyptians had started any activity yet.  In the meantime, I wandered about getting the lay of the land, and roaming the halls of the US Embassy in Cairo to start the administrative process of getting out of a hotel room, and hiring some local Egyptians.  The US Embassy administrative section provides a do-all support service for all other US agencies in-country, and all they needed to start was a billing code to charge against.  But if you want things done right, you find out who the action officer and decision makers are and make personal contact with them. 

The first order of business was to hire an office manager/secretary to serve the US side of the JMET.  She would serve to keep order and records in the office.  I am by nature a very neat and ordered person, but I didn't want to be distracted with the minutia of proper record keeping.  I only had one local Egyptian candidate supplied by the US Embassy. 

Mervi

Her name was Mervi.  She was a very pleasant, older, short, plump, married lady with a husband and children.  She was a devout Moslem, and wore traditional, conservative Moslem dress, complete with head covering.  But she spoke very good English, and had a very pleasant disposition.  The Us Air Force Officer Co-Chief of the JMET had not yet arrived, so I went ahead with the office manager selection.  If he wanted to make changes when he arrived, we could still accommodate that.  But everyone thought she was a good selection, and she turned out to be a very competent office manager. 

Once Mervi was on board, the next order of business was to lease temporary office space in the lobby of the Hotel Ismailia.  This office was mainly for her, as I was usually out and about in Ismailia, the base, or in Cairo. You might think she would have nothing much to do, but there was considerable message traffic going back and forth between me and my home office for her to receive, distribute, type, organize, or file.  She also made sure all the temporary support deals I was arranging with the US Embassy were properly documented.  At this time I moved out of the hotel in Cairo - initially into a room in Hotel Ismailia, where my temporary office was.  But I only stayed in the hotel for a couple of weeks until the embassy could arrange a short-term lease for an apartment in Ismailia. 

The next order of business was to evaluate and interview more local-hire staff.  The field office was authorized two local-hire Egyptian engineers, and two more local-hire Egyptian secretaries.  The rest of the USJMET staff would come from the US.  It can take quite a while to recruit, evaluate, select, and hire competent staff for a project, so even though no work had started on the base, job descriptions had been created - mostly by me using standard descriptions, with the "other duties as assigned" highlighted, because this project had a lot of unknowns in it, and I wanted flexible, intelligent, multi-talented people. 

These new positions were advertised Corps wide, and candidates were being evaluated.  However, it usually wasn't wise to fill new positions permanently straight-on.  Poor performers too often were given good ratings and praise in the hope someone else would hire them.  That occurred because it s very difficult to fire someone in the US federal service.  For this reason it was better to bring interested candidates over on a temporary basis so both the supervisor and the candidate could evaluate one other. 

Occasionally a very competent employee just can't cope with some management styles.  An example of this were two very competent older engineers I had working for me in the New Orleans District several years ago.  I'll call them Ralph and Merle, because that was their names. 

We often worked on emergency-type projects, which caused me to develop a zigzag solution approach.  I had to move fast, because it was an emergency, but I didn't know all the answers.  So design often proceeded on assumptions.  But when a significant fact became known that countered an assumption, I made adjustments to account for the new knowledge.  Ralph had no problem with this approach, but Merle really got frustrated with the all too frequent (for him) resetting of direction.  Eventually Merle got so frustrated that he wanted to quit.  But rather than lose such a valuable employee, I found a position in another division for him, that suited his personality much better. 

Some people think I have a very dictatorial style of managing, because I will set the general direction and the goals, and expect my subordinates to hit the ground running in that direction and achieve their goals.  And if I think they are slacking or heading in the wrong direction, or not performing adequately, I'll be brusque in telling them.  But I do not micro-manage my subordinates, and they have plenty of leeway to figure and decide how they are going to proceed, and adjust assumptions to the facts they find. 

If I question them about where they are on an assignment, its not to criticize them, but just to form an overview and to assess if a change in direction might affect other aspects or personnel.  But woe to them if they can't figure out the problem, or have no potential solutions in the works.

For me, Intelligence was always the most important factor in selecting someone for a position.  But the US Supreme Court has handed down decisions that do not allow employers to base a job on intelligence.  So we can't do that officially, But I do it unofficially by observing how well an employee reacts and adjusts to a changing environment, and that could only be done by personal observation. 

Afar

At the conclusion of our interview she smiled and said she hoped to see me again, and I replied that I hoped to see her again too.  Then I realized that perhaps I was misinterpreting her statement as a personal interest, and I was trying to stammer out an apology.  She realized exactly my predicament, and her face turned a little red as she just smiled and said she understood I meant professionally.  Yet a tinge of satisfaction remained on her lips - as if perhaps it was meant to be a little personal.

The US Contractor

Before I could make my final local-hire secretarial selections, I was called back to the home office in the US to participate in contract negotiations to select a US contractor to supply materials and support services for this project.  Parts of the contractors operations were to be in the US, and parts were to be in Egypt.  The selection and award of a contract took about six weeks to finalize, including visits to the selected contractors offices and plants stateside.  The US contractor had teamed up with another well-qualified firm.  They had planned to joint venture, but couldn't resolve the joint venture details, so they assumed a prime contractor-subcontractor relation.  Their particular legal hook up was no real concern, and both firms were well-qualified and experienced.

When the US contractor selection was complete, and the subcontractor arrangement approved, I finally returned to Egypt.  Nothing much had happened in Egypt while I was absent.  I checked with Mervi on the status of the secretarial candidates, and was told they had all withdrawn their applications.  That didn't bother me too much, as now with US contractor mobilizing to Egypt, I could just have him hire secretaries and assign them to my staff.  However, I was kind of disappointed that the one candidate I was looking forward to seeing again, Afar, might not be around anymore.

Major Hart

By this time the US Air Force had assigned an officer as the Co-Chief of the US-Egyptian Joint Management Engineer Team.  He had arrived in Egypt, accompanied by his family - a wife and two kids.  His name was Frank Hart, but for some reason I always called him either Major, Hart, or Major Hart, which seemed more appropriate then "Frank."  Also "Hart" sounded like "heart," which was an endearment, and that was also part of it.  He was a few years younger than I, had just been promoted from captain to major, but quite comfortable in his role as the Co-chief of the JMET.  He was the US government's representative in Egypt for the Peace Vector III project.  He was simultaneously my direct client, as well as my superior on the JMET.    

Major Hart had decided to house his family in Cairo, and was given pretty nice quarters in the US embassy family housing complex.  That housing arrangement would allow his children to attend the US-funded International school in Cairo, as there were no such school facilities in Ismailia.  He could also coordinate directly with the Egyptian Air Force program manager in Cairo.  Once he was settled in Cairo, he took to staying over in Ismailia a few days a week, 

I briefed him on what I was doing, and he took no issue with any of it, telling me to proceed as I saw fit, and just keep him informed by way of a copy of all my correspondence and official actions.  He was of like mind as Adrian, that maximum on-site authority be vested in the JMET. 

One of the first things I asked him in regard to that on-site authority was whether he had such authority in writing.  It was important to me, because I would be relying on it to direct the US contractor to comply with his wishes,  The official contractual authority lay in me, but I might have to look to Major Hart for changes in project directions if we were to complete the project on time. 

It took a few weeks, but Major Hart received his authority – signed by a general officer, so no one below the rank of General could amend or alter it.  We were set to rock and roll, and get this infra-structure completed on time to receive the F-16's. 

Wilbros-Butler and Perini

The Peace vector III project was in a fast-track mode that entailed the US Army Corps of Engineers procuring around $300 million worth of equipment and supplies just for infra-structure upgrades.  The US Army Corps of Engineers procured some of that directly from suppliers, but most of it would be procured through a supply contract that would also provide life, construction, and management support services to the JMET in Egypt. 

I got to write that part of the contract, and I like to use phrases like “to the satisfaction of the Contracting Officer, or his designated representative,” and “to the satisfaction of the resident engineer.”  That general language gave me a lot of leeway in directing the contractor. 

Wilbros-Butler was the prime contractor who would be doing the material and equipment procurement in the US and shipping it to Egypt.  Perini was the US subcontractor that had the responsibility in Egypt to provide life, engineering and management support to the USJMET, and receive the materials and equipment shipped by Wilbros-Butler, warehouse them, and issue them to the appropriate Egyptian entity to incorporate them into the air base. 

Who exactly on the Egyptian side was to receive these materials and equipment was as yet unknown.  We already knew that some of the construction was being done directly with Egyptian troop labor.  But we did not know if there were going to be Egyptian contractors also involved -- or at least the US side didn't know.  Later on we learned that the Egyptians didn't know either, because they were still discussing how to divide up the work.

Perini, as a subcontractor, had no direct obligation to me.  My contractual authority was over Wilbros-Butler as the prime contractor.  That meant Wilbros-Butler had to have a project manager on site for me to task, and the Wilbros-Butler project manager would task Perini.  While it sounds complicated, it worked pretty well in the field. 

Charlie Malone

The Wilbros-Butler in-country project manager was Charlie Malone.  He was an old guy, but very attentive and quite experienced and competent.  He would be by my side several times a day, and if I wanted something to be done, all I had to do was put it in writing, sign it, give a quick copy to Charlie, and he made sure it happened.  The official correspondence or record always had to routed through Mervi for proper record keeping and distribution, but Charlie and I had already discussed what it was I wanted, so there was no misunderstanding or miscommunication. 

Ken Rupani

Ken Rupani was Perini's project manager in Egypt.  He was a US citizen of Pakistan or Indian ethnicity, well educated, very intelligent, very knowledgeable, and very competent.  He had years of experience overseas, including Egypt.  He knew how to get things done.  Most of the time Ken was right there at Charlie Malone's side in my office, so he could get direct clarifications if he had any questions. I spent very little time worrying about in-country support.  Whatever support I ask for materialized rapidly.  

Both Charlie and Ken arrived on the project about the same time as Major Hart.  They initially mobilized in-country to Hotel Ismailia where my temporary office was.  Actually, it was the only hotel worth considering. 

One of the first tests of our autonomous authority came on the design of the JMET on-site construction office. My US engineering office had designed two separate temporary buildings to house the JMET – one for the Egyptians, and one for the US.  The design was what I would call Spartan.  I took the design and added a third building that joined the other two to form a U-shaped office complex. 

The added building would serve as a conference room for the two sides to iron out issue, and also for on-site monthly progress meetings.  One integral building would also enhance coordination between the US and Egyptian sides of the JMET.  I enlarged all the offices, rearranged the interior layout and enlarged the chiefs offices, as well as the deputies, to accommodate sofas and chairs for more casual-style small conferences with important participants and visitors. 

I passed the redesign to Major Hart for approval.  He liked it - and initialed off on it.  Then I ordered the contractor to proceed with procurement.   I routinely sent a copy of all my correspondence and directives back to my home office so they would know what I was doing, but I never asked for their approval, as that would be contrary to the creation of the JMET. 

Major Hart and I were similar in thinking, and we did not hesitate to use our authority to make decisions on-site.  But my US contractor would pass all of my directives to him through the contracting officer back in the US for verification.  I was lucky then to have a supportive US staff that would back up my decisions.  Even if I didn't quite have all the authority to make all the directives, the contracting officer would back me up and order the contractor to proceed as I directed. 

Ed Czarny

The chief of our procurement division in the states was an old friend, Ed Czarny.  He was at least my senior by 20 years or more.  I had known him for years, and always found him to be cooperative, competent, experienced, and trustworthy.  He was the contracting officer for the PV III procurement and supply contract made with Wilbros-Butler.  He designated me his official representative in Egypt with broad directive powers. 

The contract had too many unknowns to be a fixed-price contract, so it was awarded as a cost plus a fixed fee.  The fixed fee was rather generous for a cost contract.  While Ed was the Contracting Officer, I could do no wrong, and the project proceeded smoothly.

Afar Again

I didn't make any more excuses to go up to that office again, but that experience moved her from an afterthought to a forethought.  But not one that pre-occupied me - just raised my interest a little more.

General Ali

With Major Hart now there with me, and some temporary US engineers on their way, the USJMET side was operational.  Major Hart now had written authority to make on-site changes and decisions for the American side, and I had the contractual authority to direct our US support contractor accordingly .  But as of yet nothing was known about the Egyptian side of the JMET, if it was forming at all.  So we took to coordinating directly with the Egyptian Corps of Engineers General on site in charge of the Egyptian construction.  In Egypt, as in all the Middle East, It is customary to refer to the first name rather than the last.  So I would be addressed by my first name, rather than my last name.  In fact, Moslems don't use last names as Westerners do.  Instead they have one given name, and all the other names that follow are the patriarchal line -- father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and so on.  So if a name came up as Ali Ahmed Abdullah, Ali was his name, Ahmed was his father, and Abdullah was his grandfather.  Very often Egyptians interfacing with the western world create a last name using a grandfather or great-grandfather.    

The Egyptian Corps of Engineers officer in charge was General Ali.  He was a short man, very congenial with us, and very firmly in control.  He had a very loud voice for a short man, and when he barked an order to his troops, it was carried out.  

We didn't have any US designs to monitor yet, and we weren't responsible for the Egyptian designed work, but General Ali ask us to comment on his construction.  So I and Major Hart went over to where the first Egyptian building was under construction. 

It was a simple, open one-story covered storage structure consisting of reinforced concrete roof supported by reinforced concrete columns, but no walls.  The columns had already been poured and cured, and the Egyptian army was forming the roof.  We climbed up a rickety Egyptian scaffold to the roof to look at the forms and reinforcing steel in place. 

To my utter surprise the steel for roof beams had just been dropped onto the bottom of the form without being spaced or tied.  The construction crew informed me that is how they did it, and they weren't going to space the steel and tie it off.

From Temporary to Permanent

So my first invited comment on Egyptian army construction was a written report about that small covered storage building.  My report basically said that though the Egyptian Corps of Engineer design appeared more than adequate, the construction performed by the Egyptian Army construction crews was so poor that the building should be torn down and constructed again. 

I gave a courtesy copy to the General Ali, and submitted the report to Major Hart, who passed it on to the Egyptian Air Force, and from there it went on up the chain of command for both sides.  You might think General Ali would be resentful of my critique.   But he wasn't.   He was quite aware of the construction short comings of his troops, and he saw an opportunity to receive American technology transfer. 

A few days later, in Cairo at the first in-country progress meeting, attended by the program managers and the top generals on the US and Egyptian side, my report was discussed.  The Egyptians asked that the USJMET comment on and supervise all the construction.  My reply was that we were not staffed to do that, and we would need to expand our staff to accommodate the request.  I was asked how many more people I would need.  I had already anticipated that I would be asked that question, because General Ali had told me he wanted to increase our involvement.  I had an expanded staff plan that I had passed on to Major Hart to present to the program managers.  That plan was approved by the US and Egyptian sides.  This was the second test of our in-country authority. 

At an informal meeting later, my name was presented by the US Army Corps of Engineers as the permanent candidate for the Resident Engineer slot, which was also the Deputy Chief of the USJMET.  Everyone turned to look at Major Hart, Chief of the US JMET, for a up or down vote.  He smiled at me, slapped me on the back, and said "You're it!"

Help, Not Just Criticism

General Ali had asked for our help, not just our criticism.  And I was probably the only one in the entire US Army Corps of Engineers willing to do just that on his terms.  When my field staff arrived on site, I charged them with helping General Ali meet his goals -- that I wasn't interested in hearing anymore criticism to pass up the US side.  Instead, if they saw things that needed correction, they were to advise the Egyptian officer directly in charge of the construction.  If their advice went unheeded, they were to pass it on over to General Ali.  It would then be up to General Ali to discipline his officers, not us.  Of course, I was interested in hearing how things were going in the field, but it wasn't information that I would pass up the line on my side, except off the record, because it might then close our lines of communication.

In some ways this bypassed the Egyptian JMET side, but the Egyptian JMET (consisting of Egyptian Air Force officers) never worked like the US Air Force envisioned it.  It was there because the US side (actually, the US Air Force) demanded it be there, but functionally it never became a necessity.  Instead it was my engineers in the field working directly with General Ali and his officers that made such a marked improvement in construction quality.  I had good relations with the Egyptian JMET, such as it was, and they were largely content to be sidelined, as they really did not know what to do with themselves, and general Ali generally ignored them. 

This worked out so well that I seldom heard any complaints from General Ali.  In fact his officers started the habit of copying all our field manuals and everything we had on engineering and construction that my field engineers would show them,  In fact the copy machine became so overused, I began to be worried about copyright infringement, and had a copy machine installed in the Egyptian JMET office so I would not know about it.  Our copy tally often exceeded 100,000 copies a month, but no one ever questioned me why our copy tally was so high.

One of the few times General Ali came to me with a complaint was when the chief of my field office had moved one our older and more experience field engineer technicians, Billy, off the line.  General Ali asked that Billy be returned, saying he was one of the most useful advisors we had.  Of course, I told General Ali, it would be done as he requested.  On further investigation, the move off the line turned out to be nothing more than a minor dispute between the my very young field chief, Karlene, and the much older (and much more experienced) engineer tech.  So I called her in and directed her to return Billy to field duty immediately.  Karlene complained that Billy was an old fart who wouldn't listen to her, and she wanted to protest my directive to return him to duty.  But I told her it was a request directly from Genera Ali, and it was he who we were serving, and if that's what he saw as a need, that's what we were going to do.

Sweet Home in Ismailia

Well, I came to be permanent largely because I acted like I already was.  But it was a satisfaction to have passed that milestone, and officially be the permanent resident engineer and Deputy Chief of the USJMET. 

The lease was up on the temporary apartment the US Embassy had negotiated for me.   I didn't want to renew it because I wanted my American employees to be the only occupants of the entire building for security purposes.  Now I needed a permanent home.  There were no habitable buildings already on the construction site at the air base, or in the little village of Abu Suwayr.  So I tasked the contractor with finding me a permanent place to live in Ismailia.  I already had my eye on a couple of possible buildings, which I tasked the contractor to include in his list of suitable and available buildings

One of the buildings under consideration had an elevator and was really nice looking, but it wasn't finished, and wouldn't be finished anytime soon.  But the other building I wanted was available, and the owner was willing to lease the whole building to us.  I offered Major Hart the first choice on flats (apartments) in the building, but he deferred to me since he would only be staying there part time.  I  selected the larger of two flats on the top floor for myself, which had a row of picture windows that overlooked the Suez Canal and into the Sinai.  He took the large flat on the second floor. 

Our new quarters only required some "minor" improvements, such as adding in air conditioning, carpeting, weatherproofing, appliances, furniture, and furnishings. Because the building owner was on the Board of Directors of the Suez Canal Authority, I also got several telephone lines installed from their private switchboard.  The upgrades were done quickly, and within a couple of week we were ensconced in our new quarters.  A little later my household goods from the US arrived and I was "home."    

The apartment I chose had quite a fascinating view, and in the evenings after work I could watch the ships that drifted by on their way up or down the Suez Canal, and see on into the Sinai.  The part of the city where I now lived was new, mostly owned by executives and top engineers of the Suez Canal Authority.  That end of town was originally built by the French, and later the British, and was neat and orderly.

Captain Walker

A US Army Captain had been assigned to me for this project.  I called him larry, because that was his name.  Or if I was peeved at him I called him Captain Walker.  He was a West Point graduate - a very brilliant young man.  He spoke fluent Arabic, and later I also learned he also spoke whatever Israelis speak.  I learned at the end of his tour with me that he also was Jewish - a messianic Jew - that is, ethnic Jews who are Christians. 

I'm glad he didn't tell me that before, because on more than one occasion, the Egyptians asked me if he was Jewish? and why did he visit Israel so much?  My reply was that I didn't think he was Jewish, and it wasn't a question I could legally ask   I’m sure I could ask, but I knew that allowing the Egyptians to go down that path would cause me problems later.  So I just used the excuse that I couldn't even ask.

I also pointed out that both Christians and Moslems have holy sites in Israel, and that neither Americans nor Egyptians had any travel restrictions to Israel, and I couldn't impose any.  The Egyptians could have asked him to be kicked off the project, and I would have complied, even though I didn't want to lose such a valuable and hard-working assistant.  But there were no further inquiries. 

We have a dual civilian-military ranking system in the US Army Corps of Engineers. This was necessitated because we often have civilians having supervisory authority over officers - mostly younger officers.  So my equivalent military rank on this project was at the major-Lt. Colonel level.  That meant I outranked the Captain.    But you never want to carry this too far, because one day that young officer might become your commanding officer as he was promoted up the chain. 

Capt. Walker was a  godsend to me because he was officially on 24 hour duty, and I could work him to death without incurring any blowback.  He took on the responsibilities of five men and executed them all with aplomb,  Sometimes he complained about being overloaded, and I would just advise him to prioritize his work load and do his best.  I also let him make up any job title he liked for the various duties he performed.  One of the job titles he liked was Assistant Resident Engineer. 

When it came time for his annual performance appraisal, I told him to write himself up as he pleased, using all the job titles he created, and I would sign off on it, because as far as I was concerned he could do anything he thought he could do, and do it exceedingly well. 

I only had to reverse him a couple of times, and I did that privately and off the record,  Once was when he moved into the small flat directly across from me.  I had future plans for that little apartment, so I told him to find any other apartment but that one.  The other was more serious.  he had made a cartoon of one of my staff meetings showing me wearing a crown, and dictating that we would have slaves brought in to work on the project.  I actually thought it was very funny, but those kinds of things can damage one's career.  So I made hem retrieve every single copy and give them all to me along with the original.

Afar and I

I told her that I had a desire for her, not quite sure that was the correct term to be using.  She replied, as if to herself, "only desire?"  and I clarified that I thought she was pretty, and I was attracted to her.  I ask her why she did not greet me when I walked in the door of her office.  She replied that she was interested in developing a relation with me, but no one must know about it - that it had to be kept secret.  She then said she had better get back to her office before she caused a scandal, and she left after I checked that no one appeared to be watching.     

On Site

It wasn't long before the Egyptian Army Corps of Engineers had several facilities under construction.  Our "temporary" on-site office building complex had arrived from the US.  It was a quick-build "Butler-style" building that was completely built in the US, then the walls were "knocked down" for shipping.  Once on site it went up quickly.  On completion of the on-site office, my entire staff and I abandoned our town office, and turned it into a recreation room for the staff housed in the building.  The contractor also had much of his office staff moved onto the base.  But he had a legitimate need for offices in-town also,  I was hoping Afar would be assigned to the air base, but her boss kept her in town.  

Once Afar came out to the site to deliver some papers from the contractor, and instead of handing them over to my secretary, she walked straight into my office and gave them to me.  Of course, her real purpose, I think, was to see me, as I hadn't been by in a while, and had little to no excuse to visit in town.  Unfortunately for her, my Egyptian secretary, Mervi, grabbed her by the "scruff" so to speak, and bodily threw her out of my office, telling her 1) to make deliveries to her, so she could track and process them, and better yet, not to come back. 

We often seemed to talk on the phone at night for hours about nothing.  For me it was no inconvenience, because I had a phone in the house.  I also had two lines, so I wasn't tying up the international line back to my home office.  But it seemed inconvenient for her, as she had to walk down the street from her house and pay a shop keeper to use the shop phone.  That also meant that I could not call her without arousing too much suspicion or creating a scandal.

Cairo Rendezvous

Well, that happened fast!  We spent several hours together at the Cairo Museum, but eventually she had to rejoin her family.  She informed me that she was staying with her cousin in Cairo for the weekend.  I drove by her instructions to within a block or two of her cousin's apartment building, but then she made me turn down an unlighted street a block or two away so no one who knew her would see her get out of my car. 

Engaged? Or Married?

(The story about Afar is to be continued ... )

Karlene

She was a young, black, woman engineer, which was such a rarity that her career was being monitored at the Chief of Engineer's office in Washington DC.  And she knew it, which made her difficult to deal with at times.  She hailed originally from the Virgin Islands, and had a good work ethic.  She was actually a pretty good engineer, quite dedicated, and a self starter.  Knowing her career was being monitored at such a high level, and heeding advice from my command chain, even though I thought she might not be ready for such responsibility, I assigned her as the chief of the newly created field office,

Karlene seldom asked for my help, and preferred to work out field issues on her own.  She once complained about the Egyptian Base Commander, General Baky, making passes at her.  When I asked if she needed me to intervene, she replied that she could handle it.  I think she told him off, and that I told her to do it.  I think that ended the sexual harassment issues. 

I had confided to Karlene that I had to move one of our very pretty married secretaries, Maha, because General Baky kept coming in to chat with her, obviously infatuated, which Maha resented.  After I moved Maha, General Baky asked me what happened to her.  I told him that I moved her because some Egyptian officer was making too many personal visits to see her, and she complained about the unwanted attentions.  After that General Baky didn't often come to our offices. The point of the revelation about Maha was to give Karlene a sense that I would back her against General Baky, and she was free to tell him off, diplomatically, of course.

General Baky wasn't really involved in the construction, and I did not have to coordinate much with him - that was major Hart's responsibility.  But Baky was an important person to keep pacified.  I chose to keep him in line, rather than pacified, which worked out better, and didn't entail sacrificing innocent personnel to the whims of a sometimes maniacal man. 

The Evil That Men Do …

Must of this story is about successful collaboration, cooperation and achievement on an international scale.  But dissidence, deception, and destruction also occurred.  I tell this part with the clarity that comes from hindsight.  During its occurrence over several months, the evil that was perpetrated was not so obvious.

Col. Butler

The first time I met Col. Butler was when I was already in Egypt.  He was newly arrived, and touring the projects under his command, and PV III was his largest project. 

As he walked into my office in the JMET Building, the first remark that came out of his mouth to me was that my office was too big, and too plush.  I think he expected me to be intimidated and meekly bow out or  move out into smaller quarters.  He did not praise my efforts, nor the good will we had built with the Egyptians. 

It was unusual for a new commander to attack one of the architects of the most successful project he had inherited.  I did not know then, and I do not know today, why he started off with a dislike of me.  Not that I care much if I’m liked or disliked, but it didn’t seem logical. 

I suspect Col. Butler may have been fed sour-grapes from Col. Micro, a former commander from several years earlier who tried his best to fire me, and found out he couldn’t do much of anything at all, except to make himself look like a rabid lunatic ranting at me – with dozens of on-lookers, and me just calmly watching him self-destruct.  Col. Micro was one of the few ex-commanders who stayed in the general area after he retired.  He was actually fairly intelligent, but a micro-manager to a fault.  But his biggest fault was that he didn’t know how to manage people.  He also was passed over for promotion and forced into retirement.

Whatever Col. Butler's motivation, I don’t intimidate so easily.  Butler had the power to order me out, and even to replace me if he wanted to.  But he would have to do it in writing, and that, I think, he was unwilling to do.  I just had too much visibility up the command chain on both sides of the ocean.  So I just ignored his verbal comments, which probably irked him even more.

However, ticked off Butler might be, I didn’t hear from him again directly.  I had entertained general officers from both the US and Egyptian side , and they heaped lavish praise on both Major Hart and myself for the support we were providing the Egyptian side and the PV III program.  I wasn’t afraid to buck a mere Colonel over the size of my office.  Besides, these commanders usually only spent two years with us, then they retired. 

The Army had a firm policy at that grade level – you are either promoted, or you are retired to make room for the promotions of younger officers.  My outfit had plenty of fast-moving projects with opportunity to make a break a commander. 

Bo Bounds

The bad that Col. Butler did was to appoint Bo Bounds to succeed Ed Czarny as the Chief of our procurement division after Czarny retired.  That was bad, but Butler also appointed Bo as the Contracting Officer over Wilbros-Butler.  Now that was pure evil,  As soon as I heard that Bo was the successor Contracting Office, I knew I was in for a stormy ride.

I had known Bo for years.  He worked as a supply contract specialist in Ed Czarny’s shop.  Almost every time I tried to coordinate something with Bo he turned into an intractable obstacle, and I would jump over him and go directly to Czarny.   Czarny and I always saw eye to eye on contractual matters.  But Bo and I could never agree on anything.  He was a small man with a small mind, that could not see even to the horizon.  On every clash in the past with him, I had consistently bested and sidetracked Bo.  But Now, he was in a position seek revenge – as he saw it, it was pay back time.

Whereas under Czarny I could do no wrong, suddenly under Bo I could do no right.  Bo took to criticizing every directive of mine, past or present, claiming I had exceeded my authority.  But he did not say that directly to me, or send me any written instructions. 

Instead, it was all verbal assaults made to my chain of command back in the home office.  The only things I saw in writing were emails from my chain telling me what Bo was saying, and my chain were the ones suggesting I resign my contractual authority.  They even had my old supervisor come over demand I resign. 

But I stuck to my guns.  As far as I was concerned, resignation would be tacit admission I had done something wrong.  And I pointed out that Bo now had the power to remove my contractual authority, and that is what he should do if he thought I had exceeded my authority.  But I wasn’t going to voluntarily remove myself. 

I put that in a written memo and sent it back to my chain.  I also passed an informal copy to Major Hart.  So he would have a heads-up if changes were going to be made that might affect our ability to support the project. 

What happened next astounded me.  Instead of removing my contractual authority, Bo declared the entire supply contract was illegal, requiring ratification, renegotiation and reissue.   And that nincompoop of a moron, Col. Butler, apparently backed him.. 

But with so radical a move, Bo and Butler eventually sunk their own canoe.  This absurd game lasted for several months and put the entire project in jeopardy.  But evil intentions often go full circle.  Butler was passed over for promotion and had to retire.  He was soon out of the picture.  Bo retired shortly afterwards, and things got back to normal.  The contract was never renegotiated.  Magically, with Bo’s departure, it wasn’t illegal anymore. 

95% Complete

Eventually, we all move on to other things.  Near the end, the Egyptian side seemed to be forever stuck at 95% complete.  On more than one occasion, we pointed this out to them, and finally they said they were content with 95% complete, and to stop bringing it up at our joint progress meetings.

With PV III winding done, most of the work remaining was drudge work.  Major Hart was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, and reassigned.  I left the project to become Chief of the Programs and Reports Division back in my old outfit in the US. 

The 95% complete issue, however, had as a consequence that the US would build the remaining Peace Vector bases as turnkey projects.  

One of the things I treasure about PV III is the commendation letter I received for exceptional service as Resident Engineer and Deputy Chief of the US Joint management Engineer Team on the Peace vector III project in Egypt.  It was issued to me after Butler and Bo had retired, and It was signed by the commanding general of the entire US Army Corps of Engineers.