WIESBADEN, Germany — U.S. Army Europe Command Sgt. Maj. David Davenport will move on to a new assignment in March after serving three years and three generals in the post.
Davenport, who has spent most of his 31-year Army career in Europe, has been tapped to take the top enlisted spot at the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Eustis, Va., a place, he said, he’s never been.
The Army has yet to name his successor.
Though not as high-profile as the position of USAREUR commander, Davenport has become well known in the Europe military community over the past three years, both from his numerous appearances on the American Forces Network and his frequent trips to visit U.S. and allied soldiers around the continent.
Those who see him on TV know he’s a fan of Miami Dolphins football and Baltimore Orioles baseball.
Out of the spotlight, though, he was working to increase the effectiveness of the Army’s much-reduced European force by making sure young sergeants got training they needed for further promotion and that soldiers were ready to deploy.
The command, which numbered more than 200,000 troops during the Cold War, now has around 30,000. About two years ago, roughly 13 percent of USAREUR’s soldiers weren’t available for deployment for various reasons, such as medical or administrative problems.
In the last year and a half, the percentage of soldiers not available for deployment has dropped to 9 percent, Davenport said.
“There’s no glory in that. I mean, there’s no headlines,” USAREUR chief Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, Davenport’s boss, said Thursday at a going-away ceremony for the 49-year-old cavalryman. “But it’s about helping make a system work and it’s about helping soldiers get the care they’re supposed to get” and help units navigate the military’s “thick” bureaucracy.
“That’s part of his legacy,” Hodges said.
Davenport, who came to USAREUR from a stint as command sergeant major for Fort Bliss and 1st Armored Division, said the hardest part of his job in Europe was getting around to see the soldiers, who are dispersed among seven major garrisons in three countries and deployed across the Continent from the Baltics to Turkey.
At Bliss, he said, “it was very easy to jump in a car to drive and visit 4th Brigade. But you just can’t do that in this footprint.”
He’d like to have spent more time out, he said, to quell the fears among soldiers, civilians and family members about Army decision-making, such as plans to cut the force’s end strength — a frequent source of concern.
While he would have been happy to retire from USAREUR, he’s looking forward to TRADOC, a command with a very long reach and which oversees everything from basic training to leader development.
“That affects the whole force,” Devenport said, “so I’m very excited about that.”
millham.matthew@stripes.com
Twitter: @mattmillham
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