Photo By Lt. Col. Patrick Simon | Staff Sgt. Cedric High (left), of Leesville, La., with the 225th Engineer Brigade,...... read more read more
BAGHDAD — Iraq may be thousands of miles from Disney World, but the Army's top engineer Soldier spent time with troops from the 225th Engineer Brigade during an informal gathering at Camp Liberty, Sept. 22, comparing their roles to their civilian counterparts at the house that Mickey built.
"In Disney, their engineers are called 'imagineers'", said Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, chief of engineers and commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "In the Army, I think of you as 'solutioneers' because we are always called upon to find solutions."
Van Antwerp told the 100 attentive Soldiers that he is proud of their service and their courage in the current fight, and then he broke into a story about a tradition his family enjoys every Christmas holiday; solving jigsaw puzzles, and how that tradition illustrated the impact engineers make on the battlefield.
"While we worked on the 10,000 piece puzzle, we had lots of children running around and they would take pieces while we didn't notice," said Antwerp jokingly. "That was the most difficult part at the end of the puzzle when about five to 10 pieces were missing."
"You are like pieces of a puzzle," he told the engineer Soldiers. "The picture doesn't look right until all of you do your part. "
For their part in Iraq, engineer Soldiers have spent countless hours training and partnering with Iraqi engineers on projects from building B-huts, dining facilities, morale and recreation sites, roads, bridges and even taken on the more dangerous missions of clearing routes of improvised explosive devices and cleaning debris along roadsides
Van Antwerp, a Desert Storm veteran, also urged engineer Soldiers to keep up the good work of designing the changing needs of the military and remain vigilant on the constantly changing battlefield.
"It's different today than previous deployments," he said. "And it will be different for Soldiers coming in on the next deployment."
| Date Taken: | 09.22.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 09.24.2009 04:36 |
| Story ID: | 39198 |
| Location: | BAGHDAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 243 |
| Downloads: | 222 |
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