For most of my time with the Corps of Engineers I have missed the Chief Engineer’s visit. Either he arrived the week I was traveling or moved to a new location, any number of things. At times it felt like the Chief Engineer was avoiding me. But finally this past year I had an occasion to be in the same place as him.
There was a “Meet and Greet” followed by a brief speech in the lobby of our District Headquarters. I was able to meet the Chief, more on that in a minute, but later in the day the Chief was talking with my supervisor who mentioned being over Grafenwöhr. To which the Chief Engineer responded, in a carefully measured tone, “Oh. I met your Grafenwöhr Resident Engineer.”
As I walked into the lobby of the building, the first person I saw was LTG Semonite. Walking up to him I introduced myself and reminded him we had met before. He was the South Atlantic Division Commander at the time and I had been with the Corps about three weeks. When I told him I was sure he remembered me he laughed but he did actually remember the trip because we spoke about one of the projects he visited on that trip.
He asked me where I was and if we had any big projects coming up. I told him Grafenwöhr and about two of our big military construction projects that would be awarded soon. His followup question was a bit strange because he asked if I had heard anyone say that there were some MILCON projects that were serving as places to “park” money to shift quickly to Poland if those jobs materialized. “Well, sir,” I said, “If you’re going to wear a tinfoil hat, wear a big one.” Then proceeded to launch into my spiel.
In addition to hearing a rumor that there would be a parking of funds as he described I was also aware of the money that Poland had committed to the building of infrastructure in their country. For the purposes of this conversation I left out the tactical stupidity of such an investment but went on about funding. With the ability of the President to shift MILCON funding, I surmised that the projects were parking funds in Germany to shift to Poland where the Polish money would then be used as the projects were shifted to construct the border wall with Mexico. Which would mean that we would get a wall and POLAND would pay for it.
Now, I’m not saying I hit the nail on the head but the man would not look me in the eyes after that.