In Black America; Major General Dana J.H. Pittard

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is in Black America. You know, there's ten divisions in the Army, ten combat divisions. The only ones commanded by the African-American, that's me, here in First Army division, of course there's pressure. But I like pressure. I thrive in pressure personally. But it's also pressure, not only the African-American, but also being from LPAT, because this is my hometown. There's a lot of pride. From me to my hometown, my hometown to me, and I feel that, and so that just makes me want to do even a better job. Major General Dana Patar, commanding general of the First Army division, and Fort Bliss Texas. In November 1848, the War Department ordered the establishment of a post at El Paso del Norte.

The first U.S. troops to arrive were six rifle companies of the Third Infantry Regiment, today Fort Bliss is home to the First Army division, which returned to this country in 2011 after 40 years in Germany. The installation is the Army Center for the Education and Training of Area Defense Artillery Soldiers and Units, and the Army Sergeant's Major Academy. Also, Fort Bliss is in the process of the largest transformation in its history. Five billion dollars have been invested for the construction of new top of the line facilities for incoming personnel and their families. Constructions of new training ranges, offices, barracks, housing, and a new William Beaumont Army Medical Center has also begun. I'm John L. Hansen, Jr., and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, Major General Dana Patar, commanding general of the First Army division, and Fort Bliss Texas, in Black America. We've got two of our combat brigades in First Army division that are deployed now. One's in Iraq, and a lot of things are happening there, as you know.

And one is in a very tough area, or light brigades, and a very tough area in Afghanistan. But we have thousands of soldiers stationed in other places throughout the Southeast Asian and other places in the world. So, you know, a lot of my folks is there, and also on First Army division, this First Army division is preparing to deploy Afghanistan next summer. And that's just on the operational side. On the post side, it's everything from moving Fort Bliss to the future for renewal energy, because we're leading the Army. And becoming the first, what's called net zero post in both energy waste and water, and then dealing with local leaders, as well as being a leader of our soldiers, family members, civilian workers, and contractors, which equal almost 100,000 by 2014. All that happens every day here. Fort Bliss was established in 1848 to support settlers and act as the liaison to the Native American population and the Mexican government, making it one of the oldest Army posts. Fort Bliss is unique among Army installations in that their main post is located in the city of El Paso, Texas, while 90% of the training lands and several base camps are located in New Mexico.

Raised in El Paso, major general batard is the graduate of each wood high school. In 1981, he was commissioned a second lieutenant from the United States Military Academy at West Point, with a bachelor of science degree in history. He later earned a master's degree from the school for advanced military studies at the United States Army Command and General Staff College. Also, he attended John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University as a senior service college fellow. On July 9, 2010, major general patard assumed command of Fort Bliss, the largest military maneuver practice area behind the National Training Center. He is the only African-American to command a combat division. Oh, certainly an advantage would be that you move from place to place and it forced you to get to know people quickly. And so that's certainly a plus, but a minus would be that you move from place to place and you didn't have friends until you made them.

Having brothers and sisters made that transition from place to place just a little bit easier? Well, it did, but my brother, though he was two years older than me, because he was a brilliant young man. He was four grades ahead of me. He had been four or a couple of grades, so we were really never in the same school together. Your father recently passed away and you have our condolences. Did that make a decision easier for you to consider the military looking at him every day? My father was, and thank you for your condolences. My father just died last month. Yes, in fact, he was one of my original heroes growing up. My father, my grandmother, my grandmother, very, very strong matriarch of her family. But my father watching him in uniform, I had such admiration and respect for him growing up. When you graduated from West Point, you were commissioned a second lieutenant? I was. And what was your first assignment out of West Point? My first assignment was Fort Riley, Kansas, and that's after going through, you know, your different schools.

I went to Ranger School, Airborne Air Assault, and the armored basic course at Fort Knox, but then my first duty assignment was Fort Riley, Kansas, about two and a half hours west of Kansas City. Prior to me selected the commanding general at Fort Bliss, what were some of your other assignments? Different assignments from a number of times in combat. Going back to Desert Storm as a company commander, I also commanded a brigade in Germany and deployed them to Kosovo, and then later took the same brigade to Iraq. I had different assignments. It's been a fascinating experience. I mean, I was a company commander in Berlin. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, I later was military to President Clinton for over two years. I was able to go to Harvard University, the school, Kennedy School of Government, as a military fellow. It's been a fascinating experience during the military. When you learn you are going to become the commander at Fort Bliss on June 9th, that's when you will assume the command. What were your feelings and thoughts once you learned that you were basically going back home?

That was pretty awesome, because normally in the military you don't get to go back home, but Fort Bliss had been an air defense post and part of our Army training and doctrine command. Because I was armored cavalry, I knew I'd probably never get a chance to go to Fort Bliss, but that all changed when the decision was made to bring first armored division from Germany. It's the last division we have in Germany, and move it to the United States to Fort Bliss, and then they moved the air defense center from Fort Bliss to Portillo, Oklahoma. So it was just so neat coming home and the people of El Paso and the people that I've known since birth have just been so nice. And it's just such a military friendly town anyway. How does an idea of what a typical day would be like being a commanding general at a major military installation in this country?

Well, it starts really in the morning. I do PT every day, but I try to do PT a couple of times with different units. Kind of check on training, see how things are going, and see them see that anything they can do I can do too. And that's in the morning. That's like from 6.30 to 7.30 in breakfast, and then work starts between 8.30 and 9. And all sorts of things occurred that time. We've got two of our combat brigades and first armored division are deployed now. One's in Iraq, and a lot of things are happening there, as you know. And one is in a very tough area, or light brigades, and a very tough area in Afghanistan. But we have thousands of soldiers stationed other places throughout the Southeast Asian and other places in the world. So, you know, a lot of my folks is there. And also on first armored division, this first armored division is preparing to deploy Afghanistan next summer. And that's just on the operational side. On the post side, it's everything from moving for plus the future for renewal energy because we're leading the army and becoming the first what's called net zero post in both energy waste and water.

And then dealing with local local leaders, as well as being a leader of our soldiers, family members, civilian workers and contractors, which equal almost equal almost 100,000 by 2014. All that happens every day here. I understand. If you're just joining us, you're listening to in black America from KUT radio. We're broadcasting this week from K NTU in Denton. And we're speaking with major general Dana Patar. He's the commanding general of the first armored division and Fort Bliss Texas major general. When one is in civilian life, he or she has an opportunity to select their staff. Obviously, in the military, you don't have that luxury. How has your management style adjusted or changed to that reality? Well, you do have some opportunities to select people to an extent, but you know, I kind of believe in you do the best of what you have always.

You've always been a person of faith. And I just do believe with hard work with taking care of the folks that you work with and providing vision that you can do anything if you work as a team. When you have an opportunity to talk to these young men and women about service to this country, what are some of the main things you try to express and get across to them? Well, it's service. And it doesn't have to just be military service. Service can be in many ways. It can be a community organizer. And your local community can be being a teacher. It can be a firefighter, a police officer. It could be part of Peace Corps, America's Corps. But it's the idea of serving this nation that has benefited so many of us in so many ways. And it's also being a part of something that's bigger than any individual, bigger than ourselves. And that can be very, very satisfying. Now, I've chosen to be in the military for 30 years. I'm not saying everybody's got to do that, but at least spend two years doing something that's bigger than yourself, and volunteering to do that, or you know, for probably very little play.

It's a tie to our nation and our community. Tell us about the logic expansion of any military postence World War II and also the William Beaumont. Well, here at Fort Bliss, which is right outside of El Paso, Texas. Just a couple years ago, I go back down in 2005, we had about somewhere between 8,000 and 9,000 soldiers. But when the base re-alignment commission announced that Fort Bliss would be kind of the center of the army in many ways of expanding, we went from 8,000 to 9,000 soldiers to what we are today, 27,000. So we tripled in just a little over five years, and billions have been spent here at Fort Bliss. It is the largest expansion of a military insulation here in the United States since World War II. And it's awesome with all the new things that we have here. And William Beaumont is the name of our hospital. And as a kid here, I remember when this William Beaumont was built in 1972, now we just programmed on the new William Beaumont Army Medical Campus, which is a $1 billion.

That's a billion with a B, $1 billion hospital. That will be a state-of-the-art hospital that will be finished in late 2015 or early 2016. We're all very, very proud of that. At Fort Bliss, with all that's going on here, the expansion, the billions of dollars that's been spent, all the moves that bring so many soldiers and families into the workers here, has almost made El Paso recession proof. Not quite, but the recession has not really hit El Paso very hard because of Fort Bliss. Do you feel any added pressure has been an African-American commander of a major military installation? I do. I'm, you know, there's 10 divisions in the Army, 10 combat divisions. And only one's commanded by an African-American. That's me here in First Army division. Of course, there's pressure. But I like pressure. I thrive in pressure personally. But it's also pressure not only being an African-American, but also being from El Paso because this is my hometown. There's a lot of pride in, for me, about my hometown, my hometown to me. And I feel that. And so that just makes me want to do even a better job.

Well, same that you were very enthusiastic. I saw the YouTube video for homecoming when you were addressing some of the students at Eastwood. That was fun. How's it working with another African-American bigger than General Stephen M. Twitty as your deputy commanding general? Well, you know, he's General Twitty. General Steph Twitty is just a great soldier. And I feel blessed that he's a deputy commanding general. In his first time, there's been a division commander of the African-American with a division deputy commanding general of the African-American. In fact, one question that was often asked was, how do you all do that? What'd you do? It's like, no, it's, maybe it's the Lord's doing, but we make a great team. Which, again, puts even more pressure to say, okay, we will just show that this is a winning combination. And it's proven itself out. To let people understand that you're not all military 24-7. Understand you were a special guest on deal, no deal in 2008?

I was. I was. Tell us about that experience. Well, that was kind of neat, because it was a military-focused program. In fact, my 8-to-camp, when I was asked to do it, I said, well, no, I mean, I don't have time to do it. I said, oh, three-year-to-go, three-year-to-go. I know why. I knew later why he wanted us to go. But the contestant was a military spouse whose husband was in Afghanistan. And she was on, she did, she did fairly well, but we were able to bring her husband to the show from Afghanistan, and that was neat. And then I guess after the show, my 8-to-camp did get a date with the number 27, so it was successful for him, too. Speaking of TV shows, I understand that Armywives were on Fort Bliss recently. How did that experience go according to your wife Lucille? Well, that was a neat experience with Armywives when it was a commanding general of Fort Irwin, California, which was only like two and a half hours from Hollywood, they first came by.

So we kept up that relationship, and it was kind of neat to see some things in the show that had something to do with our soldiers and families and their suggestions when it was at Fort Irwin, California. So they brought even more people to Fort Bliss, Texas, and State even longer. We had a bunch of men, the writers at our house, and we set up different sessions with soldiers and family members and Armywives, especially, so that they could get more of a feeling of how things are in the Army today. And it was very productive, I think, on both sides. If you're just joining us, you're listening to In Black America from KUT Radio, and we're broadcasting from the studios of K-N-T-U in Denton, and we're speaking with Major General Dana Patard. He's the commanding general of the first Army Division and Fort Bliss, Texas. Major General, we hear the slogan, be all you can be, why is the military a good option for individuals to consider as a career? Oh, I think it's a good option as a career choice for many reasons. One, as I mentioned before, is you're serving your nation, and you're a part of something bigger than yourself.

But it's also a way to figure out what do you want to do with your life, and gain certain skills that can help you in a civilian career, or a technical skill. It also helps you with your leadership skills, because we need leaders everywhere. We need leaders in our communities, back at home, we need leaders in profits and non-profits. So it is a way to be trained, to do other things, and to help our community overall in the future. How exciting is it for you to go out and see some of the experimental weaponry that is being developed and tested on your site? It's very exciting. In fact, something that's called the NIE, it's a network integration evaluation. What that means though, is the Army now brings almost all of its testing apparatus and folks here to Fort Bliss twice a year in the fall and the spring. And one of our brigades will test it out, and so we get to see the newest equipment and be a part of that, and then figure out if this is what is good for our units.

So it's better to figure that out here, instead of sending it directly to our units in combat, so that we can work the bugs out here. But that's been pretty cool. You see a group of individuals come in for training, and then they are deployed to Afghanistan and another part of the country. What type of emotion you go through at the end of that training process for them? There's some tough emotions. In fact, as mentioned, our third brigade has just deployed to Afghanistan, and have watched them from the beginning of their training to putting them on the plane. It was tough saying goodbye to them on the plane, and not going with them. The rest of the vision, we will not deploy until next summer. And I saw a young private first class who was only 18 years old, and you think about it. He was 18 years old, he was going to be serving his country in combat in Afghanistan. And if you think back 10 years before at 9.11, he was 8 years old, he was in the third grade.

But yet he put up his arm and said, this hand and said, I want to serve my country. And that just does something to you. All sorts of emotions. One would think, excuse me for cutting you off. No, it just makes you proud. One would think that the responsibilities at Fort Bliss is basically confined to the area in which the military occupied, but also there's more that goes on because I understand that you are working with the Border Patrol and US Customs. Yes, in fact, Fort Bliss here, we have probably the best relationship with inter agencies in the country. Now we have Joint Task Force North, which is a part of the Northern Command, which is here. So we work with all sorts of agencies from the Border Patrol to Customs to the FBI and all sorts of inter agencies right here at Fort Bliss. There's the Al Paso Intelligence Center located on Fort Bliss. And so that's been an experience for everybody, a very positive experience, because those are the kind of relationships we also have in Afghanistan or Iraq. It's much easier to work with inter agencies than it is here in our country, but we have a very, very good relationship going here.

Tell us about that net zero campaign that you all have on at some, 2015 and 2018 for two different components of that endeavor. Well, thank you for asking. We feel very strongly about taking care of the environment. And we have a plan to become net zero in Renewal Energy, which we define that is producing more than we consume in Renewal Energy, such as solar, wind, geothermal, by December 2015. And that's a very aggressive goal, but we're moving out very aggressively towards that goal. And then for net zero with waste and water to be fully self-sustaining in both waste and water by December 2018, which is also an aggressive goal. But we're moving out with that. We'll be the first insulation in the history of the Army or the Department of Defense to do all three. How you go about handling your military career and also your family obligations?

It's a lot of juggling. First and foremost, I feel like my principal job is to be a father to our two sons. My wife and I have two sons. Teenagers, 18 and 16 year old. And it's tough raising two sons these days. So that's a primary mission. But it is juggling balls in some ways, but it's also like the plate spinner out there. You keep both plates spinning. If you're doing well enough, then all you have to do is just spin them a little bit and they keep going. As opposed to the juggler, if you add more balls, then eventually some are going to drop. So it's a different way of looking at it. When you're not being a major general and a commander, what are some of your hobbies and other activities you'd like to participate in? Well, I love sports. I love just being with my family. And free time is valuable time. I make sure that all my schedule or my son's football games, I will go. Because this time next year, I'll be in Afghanistan. I've got a junior and a senior this year. My junior will be a senior next year and I'll miss his entire senior year.

So time spent with my sons and my wife are valuable time. Obviously, when one goes into combat, there's a change. How did your life change and the perspective on life change once you went into combat and survived that ordeal? Well, I don't think anybody leaves combat the same that they went in. Everybody's affected differently. You've heard about post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. There's a positive PTSD and there's a negative PTSD. There's a recent study by the University of Pennsylvania that said that about 16% of returning veterans suffer from a negative PTSD. But a whopping 58% have come out of it more invigorated and more positive. That actually was the effect it had on me. I more invigorated and more positive. And it was like an adrenaline fix, which I look forward to returning because that was the most alive I think I've ever felt. But you also realize how fortunate you are.

Because people get shot right next to you, the bullet could have been you. So you value life more. And it's not that you're alive, it's how you live your life. When I was a brigade commander in Iraq, they had been engaged so many times. The insurgents tried to blow me up. There was a bounty on my head, started with $15,000, which I thought was an insult. But eventually with a million dollars. RPGs, grenades, snipers were trying to kill me. At some point I just thought, well, they will eventually kill me. So I'm not worried about that. What I'm concerned about is how I'm going to live and how I'm going to finish the mission. And that was my focus. I wasn't concerned about dying. And there's a certain point when you just reach that point, which I just thought made it a lot easier. I was concerned about how I was going to die. I was concerned about how I was going to live.

You said you're going to Afghanistan next year? Yes. Will you have to relinquish your command and Fort Bliss to do that? Or are you going to be deployed along with some of the personnel? I'm taking the whole division with me, division headquarters, and I'll leave one of our deputy committee generals behind at Fort Bliss. I'll still be in touch. Anything else? Well, I'll leave one of the one-star generals behind to do the day-to-day operations at Fort Bliss while we take over southern Afghanistan next summer. Give us an idea of the difference between being stateside as a commander versus being in theater as a commander. Well, being in theater, there's certainly a lot more focus because the mission is right there. And our mission will be to destabilize southern Afghanistan and to get the insurgency down to a level that can be managed by the Afghan security forces, which is a tall order. But that will be our focus. Here's stateside, it's about many things, but you're always thinking of combat because you're preparing yourself, you're preparing individuals, you're preparing units for combat.

And Fort Bliss has become the largest mobilization center in the entire army this year, surpassing Camp Shelby Mississippi, but you're constantly preparing. And of course here, you have other concerns, you have your families, the family members on post, you have your relations with the overall community. But you have those kind of relations also in places like Afghanistan or Iraq. Relationships mean everything, whether it's with tribal cheese, with religious he moms or local Afghan officials. When you say division, what are we talking about personnel and equipment that will be going along with you? Well, the headquarters of the division, I mean, it's about roughly a thousand people from the headquarters, but we will take over an area where we'll have about 30,000 soldiers, soldiers and Marines supported to our division next year. Final question, Commander, being a history major, what lessons have you learned to have kept you in good stead in your current position?

I guess it's, if you look at from historical perspective, it's patience. It is understand that it is a marathon and not a sprint. And that is life in general, is that, you know, today you may trip over a hurdle, but you just pick yourself back up because it is a marathon. And that's how I look at it. I look at it from historical perspective. It helps with vision, but it's life is a marathon and not a sprint. Commander, any final comments? Well, just always keep faith in yourself. Faith in, at least for me, faith in God and faith in the people that you work with and serve with. And faith in this great country of ours. Major General Dana Batar, Commanding General, First Army Division and Fort Bliss, Texas. I would like to thank KENTU for their assistance in the production of this program.

If you have questions, comments or suggestions asked your future in Black America programs, email us at jhansomhans.org at kut.org. Also, let us know what radio station you heard us over. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. You can hear previous programs online at kut.org. Until we have the opportunity again for technical producer David Alvarez, I'm John L. Hansen, Jr. Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again next week. CD copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America CDs, KUT Radio, One University Station, Austin, Texas, 78712. That's in Black America CDs, KUT Radio, One University Station, Austin, Texas, 78712. This has been a production of KUT Radio.