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By Suzanne Rice wife of COL Bill Rice, 1-84 Field Artillery, Ft. Lewis, Washington

     Yellowstone National Park is on fire!

In the 1940’s, fire, like disease, insect infestation, and weather damage, was considered a normal agent of change for the forests in the United States. In the 1950’s and the 1960’s, the Forest Service began to experiment with controlled burns to rid the forests of underbrush and dead trees in the national forests. By the 1970’s, Yellowstone Park itself had instituted a fire management plan – in part, they believed that lightning-caused fires could be allowed to continue to burn. This plan was devised because many species living in the park are fire-adapted. The Lodgepole pines which make up 80 percent of the park’s forests have cones that are sealed by resin until the heat of fire cracks them and releases the seeds inside. Fire also regenerates sagebrush, aspen and willows and although the above ground parts of grasses and wildflowers (forbs) are destroyed by flames, the root systems remain unharmed. Some of these native plants even increase after fires. Between 1972 and 1987, 235 fires were allowed to burn with only 15 of these fires burning more than 100 acres and all were extinguished by natural conditions.

The weather conditions from 1982-1987 were wetter than normal, so this plan was well received by visitors to the Park and from those living nearby. The months of early 1988 seemed to be continuing the same weather pattern until June, when a severe drought began. That summer became the driest on record in Yellowstone National Park and in June a fire began at Storm Creek. By July 15, the smoke from additional fires had become noticeable to visitors and in only a week 150,000 acres were burning. Park facilities and roads were closed to the public and residents of nearby towns outside the park were fearful of destruction to their property.

Call in the Army! For several months brave civilian firefighters fought the fires, but as the 253 fires were fed and spread by hot weather and gusty winds throughout June and July, it was clear that these heroic firefighters were coming to the point of exhaustion. Soldiers from Fort Lewis, Washington were called to service. The soldiers were given several weeks of fire training and then shipped off to Yellowstone to help. Many of these were soldiers in the Ninth Infantry Division Artillery.

As the Battalion Commander of the First Battalion, 84^th Field Artillery (LAR – the only Light Artillery and Rocket Battalion in the U.S. Army), Bill went to Yellowstone several times in August to learn about where and how his Battalion would be used to help fight the fires that had been raging in Yellowstone all summer. At Ft. Lewis before going to Yellowstone, along with his soldiers, he received detailed instruction on how to successfully assist in fighting the fires and to be able to protect themselves from injury. His battalion was scheduled to leave Ft. Lewis for Yellowstone Park on 12 September to replace members of another Field Artillery Battalion.

In life, as the old saying goes, timing is everything. Much to the relief of the families of 1-84 FA, an amazing thing happened on 11 September 1988: two inches of snow fell in Yellowstone Park! That snow stopped the fires and the soldiers of 1-84 FA, who had finished their fire training, had their duffle bags packed and were ready to board planes for Yellowstone Park, were told to stay home! What a blessing for Yellowstone Park, for the residents of nearby towns, for visitors to the park and especially for the exhausted firefighters who had been on the fire line for so many months. Between June and September 1988, almost one third of Yellowstone National Park had burned. Many firefighters and soldiers from Ft. Lewis fought to keep the fires under control. American soldiers can never be sure how they will be asked to serve our country, but they are always ready to do whatever they are asked when our nation calls.

By Suzanne Rice, Wife of COL Bill Rice, Chief of Plans and Operations, Third U. S. Army, Ft. McPherson, Georgia

While Bill was on active duty serving as the Chief of Plans and later the G-3 (1991-1996) of Third U.S. Army, the Commanding General Steven Arnold, noting the power and growth of technology, decided that Third Army/ARCENT (U.S. Army Central Command) should investigate the possibility of creating a mobile command post to incorporate the newest technology into a small space. This command post was to be capable of being moved at a moment’s notice to the battlefield, wherever it might be in the Area of Operation (AOR) of Third Army. Bill was chosen to lead the effort to create this Mobile Command Post and then, later, when he retired in 1996, he continued to work on that project as a civilian.

Nothing like this had been conceived for the Army before, so this was new ground to explore and it kept Bill busy for four years! The idea was to place into a space the size of an overseas shipping container all the communication and information tools that a commander could need to fight and win the battles of the future. Bill worked with Army and Air Force personnel and civilian experts taking many trips around the country to discover the possibilities and shaping the design for the prototype of this new tool in the Army arsenal. This deployable headquarters was to have almost as much interconnectivity and bandwidth as the permanent Third Army Headquarters at Ft. McPherson, GA. The command post with its own generators and support equipment inside overseas containers would be able to roll easily on and off an Air Force C-141 or C-5 so that it could arrive as soon as possible to any hot spot and would be able to be set up and operating within eight hours of arrival. Understanding the volatility of the Third Army Area of Operation (25 countries in South and Central Asia, including Iraq and Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, and Northeast Africa including Egypt, Somalia and the Horn of Africa), MG Arnold could see that the Third Army Headquarters would need to be able to coordinate operations at almost any moment – and as quickly as possible. Because the Third Army Headquarters could not be sure of the conditions they would find should they be sent to most of the countries in their Area of Operation (AOR), the mobile command post would be their home base until/if a more permanent headquarters could be set up. At that time, the only place in the AOR, with prepositioned equipment and a headquarters to fall in on was in Kuwait which Bill had set up soon after the first Gulf War in 1992 – as the action officer for Joint Task Force Kuwait. It was clear to Bill from that experience that even with all the most up-to-date technology, in the heat of battle, some of that electronics might fail, so he incorporated into the Command Post, “stone age” technology such as wax pencils, overlay maps, slide rules, etc., so that the Commander could still engage the enemy whether or not the newest technology was working.

The Mobile Command Post for Third Army was given the name Lucky Main and by late 1999 Lucky Main was ready for use. By this time, MG Tommy Franks had assumed command of Third Army and he took Lucky Main to the Bright Star exercise in Egypt to give it a trial run. Secretary of Defense William Cohen and CENTCOM commander, Anthony Zinni, came to see the Lucky Main in action and were happy with what they saw. Later, when LTG Franks assumed command of CENTCOM in Tampa, Florida, he wanted a mobile command post for his own use at CENTCOM. The CENTCOM version of the forward deployed command post was given the Army acronym of CDHQ (CENTCOM Deployment Headquarters) and was in place and ready for the

U. S. response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. These groundbreaking mobile command posts were deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (2001 – ongoing) and to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2011). Thanks to the foresight of MG Arnold and the hard work of Bill and those who contributed to the creation of the Lucky Main, the first deployment command post with full command and control capabilities, the commanders in Afghanistan and in Iraq had the tools needed to conduct their missions to protect the U.S.A. from the increased threat from terrorism around the world.

By Suzanne Rice, wife of COL (Ret) Bill Rice, Atlanta, Georgia

“We have to go shopping after dinner.”

“What are we shopping for?

“A wall clock.”

“Why do you need a clock?”

“I need it as a prop. I have to put on a play tomorrow at work.”

Bill was working in a newly-formed team called the Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness (COTPER) at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta in the Spring of 2008. Many Americans may have thought this sort of team was already a part of the CDC especially after the terrorist attack on New York City on 9/11/01. However, that was not the case. Though the CDC is made up of brilliant doctors and world-renowned experts on the most dangerous organisms, diseases and illnesses, there had not been an emergency preparedness team at the CDC until 2005. The men of the CDC Emergency Operational Center (EOC) were there to bring a planning and operational dimension that had been lacking until the creation of the COTPER team.

When he joined the COTPER team, Bill brought with him particular skills that were needed on the team: his operational planning experience as honed at Third U.S. Army where as a Colonel, he had served as the Chief of Operations and Plans and, later, the G-3 for various exercises such as Blue Flag, Internal Look and Bright Star, as well as operations such as Operation Restore Hope (Somalia), Vigilant Warrior (Iraq) and Vigilant Sentinel (Iraq). However, in 27 years in the Army, he never was asked to be a playwright!

With the rest of the COTPER team, all of whom were recently retired Army officers, Bill had earlier briefed the relevant doctors and experts about how they would proceed if there was an outbreak of a pandemic such as the H5N1 Bird Flu. Unfortunately, the operational exercise that was to follow the briefing was mystifying to the people of the CDC. After the briefing, the doctors and experts asked for a dramatization of what they would be asked to do. They had not had any knowledge of or interest in doing anything but studying the pandemic – which, of course, would not be enough for our country if a real pandemic ever materialized. The mission of the COTPER group was to make a framework for how the U.S. would cope with any potential epidemic. In the case of an actual emergency, there would only be time to respond – not time to study the outbreak of the illness. A framework for action needed to be set in place.

So, we went shopping for a clock; the next day Bill and his colleagues (most of whom had recently retired from years of service in the U.S. Army) dramatized the scenario of an epidemic in the U.S. and how the experts at the CDC could respond in the quickest and most effective way.

It was only after Bill’s funeral in June 2008 that his family realized what he and his colleagues on the COTPER team had accomplished. Dr. Julie Gerberding, the Director of the CDC, was out of town on the day of the funeral, so she sent her deputy, Dr. Richard Besser, to speak to us. They both wanted to be sure that we knew how important Bill’s work had been at the CDC. Dr. Besser said that Bill had taught them procedures and practices that they had never heard of and that this knowledge would be used when there was an emergency in the future. He said these new ideas would save thousands of American lives at the time of a national emergency. He said the doctors and experts had not understood what they should do – the thoughts were so foreign to them. Bill’s skit crystallized the scenario so well that they wished they had taped it for future use. No one had known at the time of the presentation of the skit that Bill would work at the CDC for only three months – he died suddenly as he was exercising in the CDC gym, only a few weeks after the play and the follow-on live training exercise.

Thanks to a play, a clock and the creation of the Coordination Office for Terror Preparedness and the CDC Emergency Operational Center, Americans are safer and the CDC is ready to protect us from potential health emergencies. According to his COTPER/EOC team, the preparations that Bill began in 2008 were the basis for the successful handling of the H1N1 flu epidemic of 2009 when that strain of the flu was found in the U.S. and 199 other countries.

Epilogue:

Lately, we have been instructed by the CDC to continually use hand sanitizer and wash our hands. The CDC has believed this to be a good preventative for many years – and not just during an epidemic. As Bill was learning his way around the CDC in 2008, he was continually seeing large bottles of hand sanitizer on desks throughout the buildings of the CDC. Seems like a normal thing to keep one’s hands clean.  However, Bill didn’t always notice ALL the bottles of hand sanitizer –  especially the ones mounted high on the walls. In fact, often it was only after a glob of hand sanitizer dropped on his shoulder or his head that he knew to avoid that spot again. His shirt didn’t need sanitizing!