"Good morning, John!" At the Kemp-Springs Army Air Force Base (later Andrews Air Force Base), John had just stepped off the plane when Crawford, dressed in a lieutenant colonel uniform, greeted him with a smile on his face. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

"Hello, Robert!" John warmly stepped forward to hug and greet his old friend: "Just send a car to pick me up, why did you come here yourself, a busy man?" ”

"Look at what you said, this time your light was stained in the place, and your face was exposed. If Deputy Director Jairo hadn't been busy preparing for the afternoon meeting and couldn't leave, where would I have been able to do this errand? As he spoke, Crawford hurriedly took the small suitcase in John's hand: "Director Nevins asked me to ask you if you have any arrangements tonight, if not, I will go to him in the evening, and he will have two drinks with you, a great hero." Several of the old people in the department went. ”

Crawford said that the Battle Planning Division was stained with John's light because they also received a lot of credit from the 82nd Division's pilot logistical reform. Of course, this credit is not for nothing.

At the beginning, the reason why John was able to brazenly attack the logistics system of the 82nd Division and successfully gain a firm foothold was because he asked for a pilot project for logistics reform from the operational planning department when he was leaving.

Without this project, even if Bradley supported him, John would not have the authority to make any major changes to the original logistics system. After all, the army places great emphasis on abiding by the norms of the system, and without the permission of the Army General Staff, there is no door for a division to change the current army logistics supply system without authorization. That is, John, wearing the hat of an army logistics expert and a core member of the operational planning department, can get such a project.

On the other hand, the Operational Planning Department did not pay much attention to this reform pilot project. In the minds of the high-level officials of the battle planning department, such as Nevins and Jairo, this project was purely to help his old colleague John, so that he could quickly open up the situation after leaving the army.

According to the usual practice, when a core member of the Operations Planning Division wants to serve in the troops below, the Division will provide a certain amount of "support" as appropriate. John just asked to help him run a division-level logistics reform pilot project (which was originally within the scope of the work of the Operations Planning Division, and Vince and Jairo and others naturally would not refuse.) As for how well the pilot project turned out, they didn't care much at all.

Now, John's logistical reform of the 82nd Division has been unexpectedly successful, and the Operations Planning Division is also overjoyed. In any case, this pilot project was also "arranged" by them to the 82nd Division, and the credit for "good guidance" is indispensable. In addition, John was very knowledgeable, and in all his reports he did not forget to emphasize the important role played by the War Planning Department in reform. While Nevins and the others received praise from the top of the staff, they naturally reciprocated the favor and thanked John.

"No problem, I'm just trying to get together with everyone." John readily accepted the invitation. No matter where he went, the Battle Planning Department was the place where his military career began, and it was his "maiden home". Naturally, he will not let go of any opportunity to have a good relationship with his "mother's family".

In the matter of the logistics reform of the 82nd Division, he and the Operational Planning Department can be said to have achieved a win-win situation. This is a good start for the future cooperation between the two parties. Of course, John wanted to strike a hot iron and further strengthen his ties with the Operations Planning Division, the core department of the General Staff. You must know that in the future, if any lieutenant or staff officer in the department draws a line on the operational map, it is possible that a grassroots unit commander like him will run on the battlefield with his head on his head until he vomits blood.

"By the way, what's going on with Mark? When will the appointment come down? On the way to the Army Staff, John asked Crawford.

A week earlier, Clark had been urgently recalled to Washington from Camp Klebault. There is information that he has been personally appointed by General McNair and has become a member of the Army Reorganization Office. If that's true, then Clark will make a lot of money this time.

"Mark is amazing this time." Crawford said with some emotion: "It is said that McNair intends to let him become deputy chief of staff of the reorganized Army Ground Forces Command, and it is not clear that he will be able to directly surpass the colonel and become a brigadier general in the second half of the year." Last year, it was Omar, this year it was Mark, and sure enough, it was still a professional who was promoted quickly, and we people can't compare with them. ”

John was also a little concerned by him. When he first joined the Army in 1939, Bradley was a lieutenant colonel like him, and Clark was a major like Crawford. It only took a long time for the two of them to be promoted and enter the ranks of generals in one fell swoop.

However, unlike Crawford's "envy, jealousy, and hatred", John knew what Bradley and Clark would achieve in the future. He was not too surprised by Clark's promotion (historically, Clark was promoted directly from lieutenant colonel in August 1941), but the fact that Clark was handpicked by McNair was somewhat unexpected to him.

It wasn't until the car drove into the parking lot of the munitions building that John had a rough idea.

He was still influenced by the memories of his previous life, and took it for granted that Clark was Marshall's descendant. That's right, in this life, Clark was also transferred to the staff because of his outstanding performance in the 1939 West Coast amphibious landing exercises. But perhaps because of John's intrusion, something changed after that.

First, Marshall had an advantage in the fight against the conservatives ahead of time. In his previous life, Marshall was forced by conservatives to try to use the Pearl Harbor incident to drag all generals over 60 years old to the end of the situation, which is estimated to be no longer possible (after the Pearl Harbor incident, Marshall asked Roosevelt to resign, and said that the older generation of generals was no longer capable of dealing with the next war, and suggested that all army generals over 60 years old should be retired).

Marshall's side won too quickly, and Clark naturally had a lot of opportunities to show himself and win the attention of the top. Before he could make a name for himself, Marshall had already taken down the conservatives in the staff. Now there are Marshallist people in all the top and bottom of the staff and in all key departments, and Clark, a junior lieutenant colonel who has only been in Marshall's sight for less than two years, is naturally not as conspicuous as in history. Therefore, this young officer, who was once "favored", can only continue to be "favored" for the time being.

However, this point, for Clark, is both a disadvantage and an advantage. Because in the eyes of conservative bigwigs like McNair, Clark is different from Ridgway, a member of the "China Gang", or Bradley, an old man from the Benningburg Infantry School, and he has a very weak factional color. As long as he fully demonstrates his talent, the conservative side will naturally not let it go easily.

Sure enough, during the period when Clark led a team to the 82nd Division to inspect the training of recruits, he won the approval of McNair, who was responsible for the reform and training of the whole army, with a report full of "insightful ideas." He was selected by him and became a reserve candidate for the deputy chief of staff of the US Army Ground Forces. (From July 1940 to March 1942, there was a series of reshuffles at the top of the U.S. Army.) In the end, the General Headquarters of the Army was abolished, and three parallel commands of the Army Ground Forces, the Army Aviation Units, and the Army Service Forces were formed. McNell himself served as the first commander of the Army's ground forces).

In fact, John's credit is also indispensable for this. If John hadn't sold so many private goods to Clark, he would not have been able to gain McNair's appreciation so quickly. In fact, John tossed around in the 82nd Division for a few months, and the biggest benefit was not himself, nor Pop, nor the Battle Planning Department, but Clark, a guy who had taken shit luck. He's still a colonel, and he's a brigadier who writes reports.