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Transcript of GSA B115 RDOD03012869 Fdr- Entire Contents- CMH Intvw- 2002-02-12 NEIT-542 Vaughn Clyde Pentagon...
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW
U.S.A. CENTER FOR MILITARY HISTORY
CMH CATALOG NO. (NEIT-542)
Interview with MG CLYDE VAUGHN
Interviewer: Stephen J. Lofgren
US Army Center of Military History
Lofgrsjihqda.army.mil
Interview Date: 12 February 2002
FOR REFERENCE ONLY. NOT TO BE RELEASED OUTSIDE OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE
ORIGINATING AGENCY.
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 2
[BEGIN SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE.]
Mr. Lofgren: This is Steve Lofgren of the US Army
Center of Military History. I am conducting an oral
history interview with General Clyde Vaughn. Today's date
is 12 February 2002, and the subject of the interview is
the terrorist attack on the Pentagon on 11 September 2001.
Sir, if you could tell me your full name, and
position for the record?
MG VAUGHN:Full name is Clyde A. Vaughn. I am the
Deputy Director of Operations, Readiness and Mobilization
and also the Deputy Director of Military Support for DOD
within the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army.
Mr. Lofgren: And you are conducting this interview
voluntarily, sir?
MG VAUGHN: Absolutely.
Mr. Lofgren: Great. Could you briefly describe what
your position entails, the responsibilities and --
MG VAUGHN: My position as the deputy to the director
is pretty much the same responsibilities as the second man
in the directorate. Obviously this is current ops. This
is current operations for the Army, so in many instances
we run -- well, in all instances, we run 24-hour-a-day
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 3
operations, and as far as a portfolio that's kept separate
from the director, we don't do that. There are a couple
of areas that we probably each concentrate a little
heavier on, but basically I've got to be able to step in
for him and be his second in almost everything he does.
So the responsibilities are the same as he has, and that
is providing the right kind of leadership over all the
divisions within the directorate to encompass everything
from operations and mobilization, the CAP, the watch for
the Army, the directorate of military support, everything
that the Army touches in current operations.
Mr. Lofgren: Okay. Would you describe what you were
doing Tuesday morning, just sort of start with getting to
work --
MG VAUGHN: Very interesting. During that time
frame, we always start with a morning brief-off, that's
called an O&I, and we traditionally get in here somewhere
around 0530 in the morning. The first brief normally goes
through General Chiarelli and myself, and then we'll take
that brief upstairs to the DSCOPS of the Army, usually
carried up there at either 6:30 or 7:00, depending on
their schedule, and then normally we would go on from
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 4
there to the Chief of Staff of the Army if he was
available and wanted the briefing that day, and then the
briefing team would go on to SECARMY if he required the
briefing. So that day, undoubtedly just like all the other
days, started with a briefing down here early, from
probably a ten or 12 man organization that we normally
have it every day.
Now, after that, and I would have to go back and look
and see what my schedule consisted of, but I usually sign
out the force protection message out to the field, and
then I was scheduled -- the piece that I do know --do
remember quite vividly, is I was scheduled to sit in on
the Reserve Forces Policy Board meeting for General
Kensinger at the Army-Navy Country Club, and so sometime
after the morning brief, I left here and went to the Army-
Navy Country Club.
I would say probably I arrived out there around 0800,
and sat in on the opening sessions and the opening
remarks. We were waiting at that time I think for Mr.
Brown to show up and the Assistant Secretary of the Army
for Manpower Reserve Affairs. We were waiting for him to
show up and deliver his remarks, and General Davis, Lt.
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 5
Gen. Davis, the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, came
in the back of the room and motioned for myself and Lt.
General Schultz to come out in the lobby. So, I went
outside with him and he gave us the information then, the
breaking news was that the towers, and I don't remember
whether it was one tower or both, but I think at that time
it was both, had been hit by an airplane or by airplanes.
And so I called in here to talk to my exec who was at
that time Lt. Col. Jerry Ketcham, and he told me that
General Chiarelli had already gone to the CAT floor, the
CAT was being stood up, and I told him that I would be
there quickly. So, from that point I just picked up my
materials and went outside and got in the vehicle, and
drove down Glebe Road for 395. I turned to go 395 north
and was listening to the radio. At that time, of course,
they had it on about the towers being struck and I
remember thinking then that I was probably driving towards
a target. If -- and, you know, it was pretty obvious that
it was a terrorist incident because I do remember either
earlier or at the time I turned on the radio that both
towers had been struck, so it was definitely a terrorist
action.
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 6
I remember very vividly there wasn't anything in the
sky, and again, thinking about as I came up 395 and over
the top of the hill, you know, somewhere down in there you
think about what a target the Capitol would be. You know,
that's kind of what you think when you come up 395. So,
as I was going north on 395, I remember seeing an
airplane, a liner, that to me it seemed a little bit out
of, you know, out of sorts. It was - there was only one
aircraft in the sky that I could see, and I didn't -- I
didn't, of course, didn't hear anything else. And that
aircraft from where I was coming up 395 at that time
appeared to be in a straight line up over maybe the
Georgetown area or something like that, and I watched it
kind of bank slowly and head west, and then you're kind of
down in a deflade area coming up 395, you can't see back
to the left or the right. To jump ahead, I've always
wondered it that was the plane that circled and come back
around, and I've read different accounts that say that
particular plane had actually done some kind of a right
bank, and came on back and hit the Pentagon. But the one
I saw was headed west and was not in a normal traffic
pattern, and maybe, I don't know, maybe two or three
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 7
thousand feet high and kind of lumbering just a little
bit.
But as I came up 395, I got to the top of the hill
where from that point you had a real good view of the
Pentagon and the city, ane for those who have come up 395
you know exactly what I'm talking about, it's right on the
top. And right as I got to the top of that hill, the
hijacked airliner was out my left window, and there
weren't very many people that were on the top of the hill.
The highway was full of cars and vehicles, and so it
was slow traffic, but the airliner -- you know, and it
would be very hard, and I said I've never been able to
pinpoint even driving in in the mornings exactly where
that plane was, but it was probably, I mean it was very
low, and it probably had to be in close proximity or over
the top of the Navy Annex.
It may have been even over Columbia Pike, but very,
very close, very low, and there was no doubt instantly
what was going on, because it was -- it must have just
barely missed the Sheraton and the landing gears was up, I
mean, there was no doubt it was on a -- that it was -- if
anything, it was accelerating, and it was on a collision
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 8
course, it was aimed for the Pentagon. There was just no
question at all.
And I saw it, of course, you know, traffic had come
to I mean a slammin' stop right then, even before it hit
the Pentagon. I mean it slowed -- and from where I was I
had probably as good a vantage point as you could have on
395, and it appeared that it may hit short, I mean it was
so close, and there's actually -- your vantage point at
somepoint as you come off the hill you're somewhat in a
deflade there, your view gets a little obstructed by I
think 29 where it turns and goes under 395. There's a
little ramp in there, or an underpass, but I saw it track
all the way in to the Pentagon and if I lost it at all it
had to be just there -- but it happened so quick, as it
closed on the Pentagon in the last couple of hundred feet,
you know, and the resulting ball of flame and everything,
and I'm just -- I'm not actually sure that I saw it hit
the Pentagon thinking back.
But, you know, it's -- I'd almost have to get out in
the middle of traffic, stop, and just see whether I can
see that or not. But I saw it all the way in and if I
lost it at all it was just in the last split second before
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 9
it hit.
From there I don't know. We may have, you know,
during that time we may have moved a hundred foot and
traffic was stopped, and I had trouble -- of all times I
have had trouble with a particular brand of cellular phone
that they had given General Chiarelli and I probably that
week, and so we were trading out cellular phones and I
didn't have my phone with me. And so there we were, and
of course now -- and right -- there's people, you know,
that are in disbelief, you know, all over.
There was a young lady in a car next door to me, it
was a hot day, and windows were down, and she was on her
cell phone and so I yelled at her to see if I could borrow
her cell phone real quick, and I called in here to AOC,
into this office, and talked to a Major George Sterling at
that time, and my first question I asked him, I said
"George, are you all right?" and he said "yeah", I think
he said that Jerry, my exec, had already gone into the CAT
and they were all in the CAT, opening the CAT up, and I
said "You know that you've been hit by an airplane", and I
think he said "Is that what happened?" Because, you know,
there's many, many, many people that didn't find out for
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 11
him, put the flashers on, and he and I went right through
the traffic all the way down underneath the underpass, to
the intersection where, if you would come out of the south
parking lot like -- whether it's 27 or 29 -- I believe
it's 27, I've been saying 29, but I believe it's 27, the
one that goes down the west side of the building, right in
front of the helicopter pad where the plane went in.
We came off the hill, I followed him all the way down
to that intersection, he pulled his car up real quick, and
got out, and I pulled up right behind him and told him
that I was, you know, that I need to park that car in
there and I'd be going into the building. And so, he
said, "Yes, just pull off on the grass right behind that
barricade." So in many pictures for the next 24 hours
there's a green Explorer sitting there on that corner
where all the emergency vehicles and everything were. I
pulled up as close as I could to the retainer there on the
grass, and by that time he was moving traffic on down from
the Pentagon,
When I got out there on that corner, I remembered
seeing General Mahan, and now when I was kind of thinking,
you know, I was looking at where the plane hit and I was
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 12
also kind of noticing, you know, who I'd seen that I knew,
especially general officers. So Mahan -- I saw General
Mahan, I headed on down, walking and running down the road
and there were people -- and I remembered when the plane
went in to hit the Pentagon one of the offices that I knew
was right close to that, to the heliport, was General
Glenn Webster's, Fuzzy Webster's. I remember thinking,
that his office had to be hit, because I'd been in his
office several times, and I knew the heliport was real
close in there right out that window. So I was real-- you
know, I thought, boy that had to hit Training, which is
underneath the DCSOPS.
So, as I came on down -- now on foot--as I came down
the road that's when I saw all kinds of people being
helped. You know, that's where we talk about the number
of real heroes that there were, they were helping people,
you know, comforting them and taking care of them, and
there were some grossly burned people. But they all had
people all over them, and I saw Glenn Webster out on the
grass over an individual then, so I knew he was okay. And
at -- of course, you know, it just happened, I don't
really know how long it -- it just seems like a couple of
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 13
minutes to get off the top of the hill, but it may have
been, you know, as much as ten minutes.
I don't have any idea whether it was five or ten.
Simply to, you know, make a call from the top of the hill,
to pull down, stop, you know, get the policeman down the
hill, pull in behind him took probably ten minutes. There
wasn't any, obviously there wasn't any firefighting
equipment or anything yet, everything was -- it was really
going. I mean, the building was engulfed in a big ball of
flame. And a lot of heroes out there on that grass. And
I often I wondered about the people who came out that way,
because that's where the fire was, and that's where the
airplane went in, but there were people that came out of
entrances and went out the direction of the fire, were out
there in a hurry, and with all the seriously hurt people
out on that side of the building.
And so I went around the building, and of course,
especially after the towers, I thought "Boy, this is kind
of weird. Here we are going into the building." You
know, the towers had been just hit by a couple of planes,
and I wondered if there's, like a lot of people, you
wonder if there's another one coming.
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 14
But I went around the building, and came in a back
door. I went to the Mall entrance, they had the Mall
entrance shut down. They weren't allowing anyone in --
they were allowing people to leave. There were people
leaving the building, and they weren't allowing anybody to
come into the building. So I didn't waste any effort
trying to get in there.
I went on around to where I knew, where I was fairly
sure some side-doors would be open on the Pentagon, and
back between, as you round the building between the Mall
and the River entrance, there's a side door there, which
you take the steps down, and it was open between the 7th
and 8th corridor. And I came in that way and came on down
here to the OPS center. I went in to the AOC and, of
course, the CAT was stood up and told General Chiarelli I
was there, and what I'd seen happen, and accounted for a
couple of the general officers that I'd seen up to that
point, and then of course, we started from there. The
first big task, obviously, was to get a count on how many
people were missing on the Army staff. And so we were
charged off in that direction. He told me he really
wanted me to concentrate on that piece, it's the most
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 15
critical, you know, piece of it.
So, I got ahold of Major Matt Haider and we
organized, what we had to do, how we would count the
[Note: not clear here] section and we went to work. I
announced it on the CAT floor to, you know, for each
section now to start that process of figuring out who was
missing and who was not, and what their impressions were
of all that.
Somewhere along the line I was into the OPs Center,
or into the Army watch, the watch is separate, you know,
that goes all the time, twenty-four watch with watch
officers, and it's got all the COMs for the senior
leadership and it hooks us up with the rest of the world.
I went in there to check in from time to time, and I
think, I either -- I don't remember whether I had Glenn
Webster's number or he called in on his cell phone. He
may have borrowed somebody's cell phone and called in to
the watch, and I took the call. I told him I had seen
him, I knew he was okay, and told him where to come and
I'd get him into the CAT, and then we went out the back
door a little later and met him and brought him on into
the CAT.
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HG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 16
Then, we were in CAT operations for I don't know how
many consecutive days. General Chiarelli had the -- I
think I went home the first night, I don't know, 1:30 or
2:00 o'clock. General Kensinger, who was in the office
where our two DCSOPS personnel were killed, I remember
everything that he had in there had disappeared, and so he
didn't have keys to the car or anything else, and so he
lives at Belvoir and I took him home that night. He and I
walked out, I don't know, maybe 1:00 or 1:30 in the
morning to go home for a few hours and get some clothes
on, and get back in here and try to get, and continue.
But we went out, and of course, my vehicle was still out
where we left it, and there were firemen and emergency
workers and everybody else spread out, you know, all over
that piece of terrain, so probably my vehicle was the last
civilian vehicle left up there.
Then we came back. I don't know when we came back the
next day. We divided up and General Chiarelli took the
days and I took the nights for some, I don't know, 38 or
440 days, you know, in a row until we started on some kind
of a shift section and we got some other GOs. We had some
-- obviously we had a lot of officers that didn't have
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 17
offices because of the smoke and water damage or it was
gone completely, so several of those general officers
threw in and helped us early on, especially during the day
shift when we had to get all the briefings together and
what not, or Hardy and Eikenberry, Webster, were all in
here.
I worked the night shift for, I don't know, probably
some 40 days, and then we finally got down to where we had
a couple of other general officers help us and we could
get back to some kind of a schedule.
Mr. Lofgren: Okay. How much of the CAT was already
stood up? I know that General Corelli had an exercise
planned for a couple of days later.
MG VAUGHN: Yeah. There were representatives at that
time, I think probably from all the Staff, and that was
really -- I don't know how deep that was in terms of one
or two shifts, and that CAT, because we go through a
series of exercises and continual identification, and you
pull on the rest of the staff to stand up to CAT. Because
we had been doing that I think the right people assembled
real quickly. They knew exactly where to go to, and the
CAT was, by the time I got here, I think people had
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 18
automatically reported to it down here, and it appeared to
have someone in every seat, and like I said earlier, I
think, and actually there were a number of other people,
high-ranking officers that are looking for what's going
on, and don't really have any other place to go and work.
They weren't going to leave the building, so they went to
the ops site, which is the hub for any crisis.
So, it appeared that the full CAT was there. To me,
I think at that time that we were also moving to make sure
that it had 24-hour capabilities, and probably if you talk
to him, later - you know, it takes three shifts, you know,
to do this thing for as long as we've done it now, which
is some five -- October, November, December, January,
February -- five months now. So in order to give anybody
any time down at all it takes three shifts to keep going
24 hours a day, and that's where we're at now. But we
weren't there for a long time. I took awhile to make that
happen.
Mr. Lofgren: Was there any concern early on about
needing to evacuate the building or the center, or whether
you're --
MG VAUGHN: I think that, again, we had people
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 19
monitoring the fire, and the smoke, and where it was. We
knew where it was contained or where it was, and there was
probably more smell down here than there was smoke. At
some time or other there got to be a concern with the
potential for water, because much of our stuff, our wiring
and what not, is in the floor, and there was some concern,
and we started tracking where the water was. But I think
that although it wasn't real apparent, you know, whether
or not there were other attacks scheduled, we did know of
the one coming in from Pennsylvania.
Mr. Lofgren: So you were aware of that --
MG VAUGHN: We were aware of that because of the
phone calls and the fact that the watch was on line during
that process, and so there was an effort, or we did move
or make a move to move some people to site R. But I think
that there was, you know, after we got over the initial
three or four or five, three or four hours, there was more
of an attempt, I think, to make sure that the Army
Operations Center stayed up and running and connected from
here. There was more of an attempt to do that, than there
was action to actually move the OPs Center.
We did put our liaison Mr. Gary Gall, who is the
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 20
exercise director for the OPs center, and it worked a
couple of actions on, if for some reason we had to vacate
the OPs Center, which site would be go to short of not
including site R, and there are a couple of locations here
fairly close. Not anything to do with at that time, with
the fire but more with, again, with water. If we actually
lost our COMs capability, where would we transfer that
kind of ? seat to ? [Note: term not clear on tape].
But, again, the thrust especially after probably the
first eight or ten hours was simply to stay in here. I
don't recall when we knew, and you know, it took some
time, to have the fire put out, but I don't recall when we
knew that water wasn't going to be an issue either, but
there was a real thrust to keep the Operations Center open
the whole time.
Mr. Lofgren: Did you get overloaded with people down
here --
MG VAUGHN: I don't know that I'd call it overloaded,
and I don't know that I've ever considered it as
overloaded. I do know, you know, during an emergency the
CAT is the place, and the AOC is the place that people
will migrate. We had a lot of people in here by
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 21
necessity, and I think that's just part of operational
reality on something like this, that that's going to
happen, so I don't -- I was certainly glad that we had
some of the general officer help that we had in here
because there was a lot of different actions all at the
same time going on, and it was good to have, again, the
ones that, you know, that I recounted to you.
Awhile ago between Webster and Eikenberry and Vince
Hardy, it was good to have them here.
Mr. Lofgren: Because they could make decisions or --
MG VAUGHN: Because they could help take actions,
take a larger action. It's just like the compilation of
the status, you know, when all the information brief where
we're at that had to be compiled and go together, and
Eikenberry and Hardy really fell in with that, and Webster
gave us some relief on shifts. They all just pulled
together and did what they could for the first three or
four or five days.
Mr. Lofgren: Very specific kind of detail question,
but how did you get the woman's phone? Did you get out of
your Explorer or --
MG VAUGHN: I sure did. I rolled down my -- I have
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 22
electric windows on my Explorer, and she was talking, and
I rolled down, just rolled down the window and yelled at
her, asked if I could borrow her phone, and of course, I
was in uniform, and she said sure, she was still in shock.
I just said -- I told her is "Ma'am, I need to call in to
that building right now. Could I borrow your phone?"
Mr. Lofgren: For somebody writing about, sort of the
history of the Army dealing with the attack on the
Pentagon and what it spawned, what's significant about the
AOC operations? That is, we know what goes on in the AOC
in general, but is there some impression or perspective
that you would want somebody writing about this to know,
that they might not pick up from the normal course of
research?
MG VAUGHN: It's a very good question, because I
think, and again we say AOC, the Army Operations Center
goes all the time, every day, whether there's -- and, of
course, there's crises around the world, but what made
this one spectacular on the front end, is that one of the
worst things you have to deal with is the mass casualty
event. And it's hard enough thinking about dealing with
that, you know, when its some other place, but we had the
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 23
worst situation here. We had a mass casualty event on our
own headquarters, and so we were going to end up in the
crisis response, in the consequence management mode and
actually in an operational execution mode, you know, all
at one time.
CATs, by their very nature, are to deal with crises,
and every command stands them up. But I think that,
again, what made this one really, really spectacular on
the front end was the fact that we got hit and had to deal
with the immediacy of who we lost, accounting for all
those people, and putting together the next phases of
dealing with all of that.
For a long time our number one priority, was locating
and identifying and taking care of, either in a hospital,
or there were names of our soldiers and civilians, and you
know, as far as something that is probably our thinking
here will be, on this crisis action team, especially as
long as we've run it now, in looking back we would
probably hot bed this thing at a little higher level. And
what I'm saying by that is normally day to day if you walk
by the CAT there wouldn't be anybody in there. Of course,
we exercise it from time to time and we have staff
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M6 CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 24
training, but you know, you'd have to go back and think
well, maybe I need to structure this a little bit
different, with augmentation units and drilling reservists
and National Guardsmen that would actually hot bed this
thing at a much higher level than what we were doing
previously.
Right now, for instance, in order for the Army to get
back to doing its business plus doing all the daily crisis
action business, and I don't know what the percentage is,
but probably as much as 80 to 90 percent of that CAT is
pulled by Army Reserve and National Guard soldiers, and
doing a magnificent job, but that's probably one take-
away. And, of course, for the Pentagon the other take-
away is that it really stressed the importance of being
able to account for all of your people.
I think that what we saw is that for organizations
that were predominantly military, that that came rather
easy, and the answers were pretty quick. For those that
were predominantly civilian, probably it wasn't embedded
quite the same way. It was a little harder, you know, to
get the actual numbers and names of people that were truly
missing.
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 25
Mr. Lofgren: Is there anything I should have asked
you?
MG VAUGHN: No. You'll think of things. The pieces
for the CAT, I think it's interesting, you know, as you
look at how we changed you know, from phase to phase to
phase, and there were lots of, you know, all the various
pieces were going together at one time, that you know,
priorities such as accounting for and taking care of
people, you know, on the front end, to getting the
requirements in from all the commands and then dealing
with all the mobilization piece that followed on top of
that, and then the actions in support of the war, so I
mean there were a lot of phases that we moved through
quickly.
One of the big things that jumped out is the issue
that they're still dealing with now, which is homeland
security. And you know, when you deal with war plans and
bids and documents there are -- there's a process
for planning and validating and putting forces against
particular plans, and so you just move quickly into that
process. Here, because of the attack on this building,
and then the follow-on immediate concerns of securing a
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 26
certain functions and facilities around the United States,
such as chem sites and some of our key installations and a
lot of critical infrastructure, there wasn't a plan to
deal with that.
And so, when you look at what the Army did, the Army
MACOMs came in with their requests, and those were
prioritized and filled here in OD by the G-3 or DCSOPS of
the Army, as opposed to a CINC driving that process. The
Service ended up reacting quickly in driving out those
security forces. There was not a plan, there was not a
TPFD and there was no forces for a sink in charge of what
happened. And I say what happened, I don't mean the
Pentagon, necessarily. I mean in charge of what was
happening throughout the United States on the ground that
had a force ready to go --
[END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE; BEGIN SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE]
MG VAUGHN: The big issue is exactly what they're
dealing with right now, as a start-in to this CINC
NORTHCOM situation, where there will be forces for what
the plan is, with the thought that next time around there
will be a structure that will deal with that. But the
Services, and especially the Army, which has the great
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MG CLYDE VAUGHN - INTERVIEW 27
land component, and the chem sites, especially the Army,
we had to deal with that real quick.
Mr. Lofgren: Busy time.
MG VAUGHN: Yeah, it's hard to, you know, when it's
all coming together here it's hard to look back and piece
together all the various things that were going on.
That's a good stud in itself. You know, all the documents
that came out of here. Okay.
Mr. Lofgren: I thank you for your time, sir.
MG VAUGHN: Are you done?
Mr. Lofgren: Yes, sir.
MG VAUGHN: Well, you're most welcome.
[TAPE TURNED OFF.]
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