It was in late June that one of the Army’s largest Pentagon agencies, the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, made an en-masse move from drab and vermin-infested quarters near the Mall entrance to newly refurbished digs on the west side of the building.
The new quarters, located on the second floor of the E, D and C rings between the 4th and 5th corridors, were strikingly different from standard Pentagon fare. They were bright, airy, wide open and equipped with color-coordinated cubicles, furniture and carpeting.
Gone were the vermin casualty lists that used to decorate walls and work stations with weekly totals for number of mice trapped and cockroaches scrunched under foot.
Quite simply, these new digs were very un-military, being similar in appearance to the newsroom of a large metropolitan newspaper.
For Pentagon veteran John Stone, an enlisted policy specialist in the military personnel management directorate, it was like working someplace else. “Look at this, it’s really nice,” Stone said.
But on Sept. 11, it all vanished.
The horror began at 9:38 a.m., just as Lt. Gen. Timothy Maude, Army personnel chief, was conducting a routine meeting with members of his staff and representatives of the Total Army Personnel Command.
The DCSPER executive suite — Room 2E466 — was along the outer wall of the Pentagon, in the general vicinity of the heliport. Sources said the executive suite was “ground zero” for the terrorist strike, and dozens of people perished instantly.
“When the impact occurred, they were plunged into darkness, with dust and fire,” said a retired senior general who requested anonymity.
Among those not accounted for are Maude and Sgt. Maj. Larry Strickland, the long-time ODCSPER sergeant major who was scheduled to retire later this year.
“I’ve heard that several senior leaders of the DCSPER community were most likely casualties and that the Military Personnel Management Directorate, because of its proximity to the E-Ring, also took a large number of casualties,” said the retired general.
Maude’s assistant, Brig. Gen. Gene M. LaCoste, and Brig. Gen. Harry B. Axson, director of military personnel management, were traveling and not in their Pentagon offices at the time of the attack.
These officers, along with other surviving members of ODCSPER, have moved to the Hoffman Complex in Alexandria with the staff of the Total Army Personnel Command.
The general said he talked with some of the survivors the day after the strike, “Many were sobbing when they called me,” he said.
“I was told that executive officers from the different departments were conducting a meeting when the plane hit. The lights went out and the ceiling was falling when a colonel told everybody to hit the floor and hold hands. They stayed together and got out alive — officers and civilians.”
Maude left important legacy
Maude became the Army’s senior personnel officer in August 2000, a promotion undoubtedly linked to his service during the previous year as chief strategist for the “Manning the Force” program.
An Adjutant General’s Corps officer commissioned in 1967, Maude served in Vietnam with the 199th Infantry Brigade. Later, he would serve as G-1 of the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea; commander of the Enlisted Records and Evaluation Center in Indianapolis; chief of PERSCOM’s enlisted directorate; and as personnel chief for the Army in Europe.
Since 1999, Maude had been closely associated with the manning initiative, first as director of military management, later as the assistant deputy chief of staff for personnel and most recently as chief of personnel.
Within a few weeks after his appointment to lieutenant general, Maude told Army Times his major challenge would be to transform the business practices the Army uses to deliver services to soldiers and their families.
In responding to that challenge, Maude launched Personnel Transformation, a three-pronged effort involving the fielding of better information systems, everyday use of the Internet for personnel actions and a sharp reduction in the size of combat service support units.
This initiative is moving along so fast that all soldiers have been ordered to register for Army Knowledge Online, the service’s Internet portal. Barring unexpected delays, soldiers will be able to access and audit their official files via the Internet later this year, as well as submit assignment-preference statements and a variety of other personnel actions requiring soldier input.
This giant leap into the information age may be Maude’s greatest contribution to a system he spent 34 years trying to improve.
Retired Lt. Gen. Frederick Vollrath, a former DCSPER, described Maude as “a leader all of his life. He was a visionary with practicality. That is a rare combination,” Vollrath said.
“He was someone who has focused on the soldier and family, and believed that was the right thing to do at all times in his heart.”
‘Champion’ of enlisted force
Maude’s senior enlisted assistant was Strickland, another Adjutant General’s Corps soldier. Perhaps Strickland’s greatest legacy will be his prominent role in the development and eventual adoption of the new Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges Army Degree Builder program for noncommissioned officers.
Vollrath described Strickland “as the top enlisted adviser on all human resources matters for the Army for at least the past 10 years. Over that time, he certainly has been a respected and recognized leader whose advice and counsel was sought by the most senior Army leaders.
“He was, within the personnel arena, the Army’s champion for the enlisted force.”
