U.S. Army's Watervliet Arsenal's December 2014 newsletter: The Salvo

Mr. Fred ClasInnovator

ExperimenterLeader

The man who shaped Watervliet

Story on Page 3

The Salvo

U.S. army

Watervliet arsenal

Dec. 31, 2014

Page 2 Salvo Dec. 31, 2014

The Arsenal Salvo is an authorized monthly publication for members of the Department of Defense. Contents of the Salvo are not necessarily the official views of, or an endorse-ment by the U.S. Government, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, or the Watervliet Arsenal. News may be submitted for publication by sending articles to Public Affairs Officer, 1 Buffington Street, Bldg. 10, Watervliet, NY 12189, or stop by office #102, Bldg. 10, Watervliet Arsenal. The editor may also be reached at (518) 266-5055 or by e-mail: [email protected]. The editor reserves the right to edit all information submitted for publication.

Commander, Col. Lee H. Schiller Jr.Public Affairs Officer, John B. SnyderEditor, John B. SnyderPhotographer: John B. Snyder Arsenal Facebook Page @http://on.fb.me/sq3LEm

ColonelLee H. Schiller Jr.

CommandingManufacturer 6

Commander’sCorner

For many of us, there is a sense of renewal when the last bit of decorations has been cleaned up from the New Year’s Eve parties and we look forward in hopes that this new year will be better than the last. For others, the new year is a time when grand promises, or what are commonly known as resolutions, are proudly proclaimed in the name of mak-ing improvements in one’s life. If only our historic buildings and grounds could talk, it would be very interesting to hear what visions and procla-mations they would make for now the ninth generation of arsenal employees. In January 1815, the War of 1812 ended. What the workforce learned back then is not unlike the lessons that we are learning today. The fact is that when wars end so does the steady stream of money that was once readily available for arsenal manufacturing. Although I am not in the position that acting commander Capt. James Campbell was in 1815 when he and the work-force suffered through more than one year without pay, I still have the same major challenge of redefining the arsenal to ensure that we remain relevant to our nation. A major part of this effort is to enhance our relationship with Benét Laboratories. As many of you know, Benét Labs often starts product improvement as soon as produc-tion has started. By integrating our experience and capa-bilities into Benét Lab’s product improvement research, we are often the recipient of any new work that comes out of that redesign. Some of you may have noticed this month that we have had several visits by senior Army leaders. The focus of those visits was to see firsthand our work with Benét Labs that will improve the readiness of our artillery fleet. The Benét Labs, arsenal synergy works!

One other major area of our focus is on foreign military sales, a topic that would not have been well received in 1815. As the U.S. Army draws down, so too will be the need for military weapon systems for our troops. In es-sence, our workload for the U.S. military will decline in step with the declining force structure. But what is not declining is the need by foreign armies to upgrade their weapon systems in a world of constant tur-moil. We are very close to landing a few large orders that will set us up well for workload going into 2017 and 2018. But not to get the cart before the horse…we still need to finish strong in 2014. Let’s hit our delivery schedules and quality levels, while ensuring that we do so safely. The holiday season is rich with opportunities to become injured, from walking on black ice to using ladders to take down holiday lights. So, please be extremely careful this holiday season. You are truly a great workforce who gets better every day. As your humble commander, I wish you all the very best for a great New Year!

mailto:[email protected]


By John B. Snyder

Story continues on page 4, see Clas

a legend among us...Still!

Mr. Fred Clas began in 45-year arsenal journey in 1940, just prior to the start of World War II. He was part of the Arsenal’s Greatest Gen-eration who manufactured more than 23,000 cannons between the attack on Pearl Harbor to the landing on Normandy with an on-time delivery rate exceeding 99 percent. He is standing next to many of the awards he had earned through the years.

When Fred Clas left his home on a warm summer’s day and walked through the historic Watervliet Arsenal gates en route to his first day of work, little did he know then that it would take three major wars and nearly 100,000 working hours before he would depart the arsenal as one of the most revered and accomplished leaders in the history of the arse-nal and the Army’s Ordnance Corps. Clas was 18 years old when he joined the arsenal ap-prenticeship program in 1940. By then, Nazi Germany had invaded Poland, Norway, and Denmark, as well as faced the United Kingdom in the air Battle of Britain. But even with the conflict in Europe and the rising militarization of the Pacific by the Japanese, Class did not know then that his career and life would soon be shaped by what would become World War II. Nevertheless, his escapades on his first day of work al-

most did him in before he had a chance to learn anything about machining. His first task as an apprentice was to clean windows in one of the manufacturing buildings. With Clas was a fel-low apprentice by the name of Ray Farmer. After he and Farmer had put the cleaner on the windows, they sat back on the second-floor ledge and talked about their future at the arsenal. About 30 minutes after they started, a funny looking gentleman in horse riding clothes showed up and asked them what they were doing joking around while everyone else was working. Clas said there may have been a few expletives in the gentlemen’s question to him and Farmer. Farmer must have thought the guy was not part of the arsenal because of his dress and responded with a few

Photo by John B. Snyder


Clas Cont.

cusswords of his own. They would soon find out that the gentleman in the weird-looking clothes was the arsenal commander, Col. A.G. Gillespie, who soon would become a brigadier general. In 1940, the arsenal still used horses in its operations. Clas said that he thought his career was over before lunch. Such was Clas’ introduction to an Army-owned and operated manufacturing plant. When Clas started working at Watervliet in 1940, his plan was to stay one year and then attend college at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. But when the United States entered into World War II, Clas said the president established a directive that in essence locked him into employment at the arsenal for the duration of the war. But war has strange consequences not only to Soldiers, but also to those who support the troops. Clas thrived in the arsenal environment where working overtime was a seven-day-a-week proposition. After all, Clas grew up dur-ing the Great Depression when hard work came early in life. When Clas was nine-years-old, his dad told him and his older brother that they would need to get a job to help out the family. They didn’t hesitate. Both started delivering newspapers. Their day began at 5 a.m. and they worked seven days a week, regardless the weather. They kept this schedule for the next nine years, walking the 6.4 mile route each day all for one penny per paper. When Clas turned 18, his family car broke down and couldn’t be repaired. So, he and his brother took the money from the paper route that they had saved over the last nine years and bought the family a new car. He said he never thought twice about not using the money on himself. This grounding, a sense of hard work and family, would be the essence of Clas’ character for next forty-five years at the arsenal. Now, at age 92, Clas speaks lovingly of what he calls “his arsenal.” In his “man cave” located in the basement of his house are volumes of arsenal history, from newspaper clippings to the diary he kept while he was in the appren-tice program. His eyes light up when he talks about the great com-manders, mentors, machinists, and employees that he had the pleasure to serve with. But when he talks about his wartime years in the apprentice program, a special glow comes over him as he explains in great detail some of the best years of his life. According to Clas, machinists during the Great Depres-sion were forced into mobility as they had to travel from

manufacturing center to manufacturing center to find work. Very few manufacturing plants were able to keep a steady production line going and most went out of business. Be-cause of this mobility, when the arsenal advertised for the apprentice program, many of those who were selected were journeyman machinists who had been traveling the country for years seeking long-term employment. “Because of the Depression, there were more than 5,000 men who applied for the apprentice program in 1940,” Clas said. “This great pool of talent allowed the arsenal to se-lect some of the greatest machinists that I have ever served with.” Clas’ machining days were almost derailed when in 1943 he enlisted in the Navy. Two of his brothers had just joined the Navy and he didn’t want to be left out. But after 19 days of training, somehow the arsenal leadership was able to get him discharged from the Navy and thrown right into Army boot camp. Not surprisingly, after Clas finished his Army basic and advance training, he was assigned to the Watervliet Arsenal. “I went from earning $222 a month as a machinist to a private’s pay of $37 a month,” Clas said. Clas did eventually deploy during the war, but it was to Egypt where he worked for the Army Corps of Engineers as a machinist. Clas and the arsenal’s Greatest Generation manufactured more than 23,000 cannons at a better than 99 percent on-time delivery rate. Those numbers would never again be equaled. Despite such an historic production effort, when wars end so too does the requirement for a large workforce. The arsenal personnel numbers went from a high of more than 9,300 in 1942 to 940 by 1947. Clas said that something magical happens when work goes away. “After World War II, arsenals were being closed throughout the United States,” Clas said. “We survived be-cause we became inventors and experimenters.” As an example, Clas said he heard about private industry experimenting with a new compound called carbide. He visited several companies, learning as much as he could about this compound, and then tested the compound on equipment at the arsenal. What Clas discovered was by using carbide on the tips of drilling and milling machine tools the material, which is tougher than steel, could reduce machining time by up to 500 percent. When asked if he attained a patent for a product that can be found today in any hardware section of any store, he said he did not.

Story continues on page 5, see Clas


“I was a 25-year-old kid, what did I know about pat-ents,” Clas explained. “But as I look back on some of the manufacturing tools and techniques that I designed through the years, I didn’t do it for the money. I did it to make the arsenal better.” Clas explained that through invention and experimen-tation the arsenal became more efficient than any other arsenal, as well as became more aware of its vast capabil-ity to manufacture products that did not fall into the tradi-tional lines of production. “In the 1950s and 60s, we invested a lot of energy into prototype development,” Clas said. “We were always on the road talking to procurement offices and to private industry asking them about some of the production chal-lenges they had. It didn’t matter what the production challenge was, we would bring that issue back to the arse-nal and see if we could manufacture it.” As an example, Clas said he found out the Army was having difficulty with a defense contractor that was pro-viding blades for large bull dozers. He was able to get a copy of the technical data package and within two days had a quote to the Army that was $1,000 per blade cheap-er than what the Army was currently paying. The Army gave the arsenal a contract for 500 blades. Other examples Clas provided were casings for the Air Force’s Nike Hercules surface-to-air missile system and Scissor Bridges for the Army. Clas’ passion for the arsenal and his sense of duty to make the arsenal better each day did not go unnoticed. He said that every year after the apprentice program he received a promotion and by his early 30s he was the deputy director of arsenal operations. In 1963 he became the director of operations, a position he held until he re-tired in 1985. During his career, he had seen the arsenal move from guns for battleships to nuclear-capable weapons for the Cold War to self-propelled artillery for Vietnam to the most advance tank system in the world, the Abrams Tank. But beyond all the greatness that Clas helped bring to Watervliet, he remains a humble man. Clas said he was offered numerous job opportunities from private industry, some of which would have more than tripled his pay. He turned them all down. “I had a great family life growing up,” Clas said. “We would go fishing, hunting, and even through some pretty tough times we remained very close.” “To me, the arsenal is like my family,” Clas said. “It took care of me when I needed support, offered me oppor-tunities way beyond my dreams, and even through some very tough times, we remained close. And so, how could

I ever think about leaving the arsenal?” Clas said his goal throughout his 45 years of service was to maintain the arsenal’s capability and it personnel numbers during periods of peace. “It is what we did between wars that mattered most to the workforce,” Clas said. “I felt such a fondness for the arsenal worker that it pained me when we would tell our workers thanks for your wartime service but you are no longer need-ed. That drove me to work harder to find new work.” Before Clas became part of the arsenal’s Greatest Genera-tion, he was simply a young man who struggled to survive the daily challenges of something called the Great Depres-sion. But something changed in that young man when in 1940 he put his hands on an arsenal production machine for the first time; it was as if the arsenal’s lifeblood, its history, its pride, flowed from cold steel and into his palms. When one shakes Clas’ hand today and looks into his eyes, something becomes changed in them, too. There is an immediate sense of reverence and respect for this humble man who simply wanted nothing more in life than to make the arsenal better. He did!

Clas Cont.

1988 Inductee into the U.S. Army Ordnance Hall of Fame

Mr. Frederick J. Clas was born in Albany, New York in 1922 and began his career as an 18-year old machinist at Watervliet Arsenal in 1940.

He served for two years as an Army enlisted man during World War II and remained at Watervliet for more than four decades until his retirement in 1985.

For the final 21 years of his tenure there, he was Director of Arsenal Operations. Among his many accomplishments were the successful introduction of carbide into machine cutting tools, which increased their productivity 500 to 1000 per-cent; the use of high speed photography in the study of chip formation; the installation of flexible manufacturing systems, presently the largest in the country; and the establishment of performance standards more stringent than most in private industry.

His efforts resulted in a greater than 99 percent completion on scheduled production rate during World War II and a better than 98 percent rate during the Vietnam Conflict. Mr. Clas served under eighteen commanding officers during his tenure as Director of Arsenal Operations. The smooth transition from each of these to the next could not have been accomplished without his experience and expertise.

The dedication of most of his professional career to the able management of cannon production has been a major service to the Ordnance Corps and to the United States Army.


American history books are rich with stories about Soldiers who, as individuals, have gone beyond the call of duty and performed at levels that far exceeded the expectations of their leaders. This sense of the “power of one” is truly an American value in that when something needs to get done, Americans get it done. Soldiers who perform these deeds are often rec-ognized, and rightfully so, for their superior sense of duty to the mission and to the unit. But while the Soldiers are fighting, there are hundreds of thousands of Department of the Army Civilians and contractors who are also stepping up and going beyond the call of duty all in a grand effort to support our nation’s war fighters. Although the Army’s Watervliet Arsenal is more than 6,000 miles from the battles in Afghanistan, there are battles, albeit fis-cal battles, that are being fought daily at this Army manufacturing center. And, here too, are indi-viduals who are stepping up, going beyond their call of duty, performing at levels that exceed the scope of their job responsibilities. As the effects of what is commonly called “se-

questration” still trickle down throughout the Defense Department, the arsenal finds itself at the mercy of weapon program managers who have become reluc-tant to award new contracts in an era of today’s fiscal uncertainty.

Since sequestration took effect in March of 2013, the arsenal has suffered through a hir-ing freeze, furloughed its workforce, allowed very limited overtime to meet production requirements, and experienced a signifi-cant drop in future weap-ons orders. But given this sce-nario, some might believe that the morale of the arsenal workforce would suffer. But for many, it hasn’t. After all, the arsenal has suffered through countless ebbs and flows of defense spending since the War of 1812, when its foundation was laid. And so, today’s workforce is not experiencing anything new. In fact, it is during these periods of uncer-tainty that the arsenal workforce usually shines. The arsenal has sur-vived more than 200

years of wars ending and then starting back up due

Story continues on page 7, see Peter

Machinist’s good idea helps the arsenal, taxpayer

By John B. Snyder

Machinist Peter Northup was the top graduate of his apprentice class that graduated in 2013, having maintained a 4.0 GPA during the four-year program. Today, he is often found working on the mortar production line.



in large part to its workforce. The workforce has had and still has an uncanny ability to transform existing manufacturing capability into new markets for military goods. No example may be more powerful than in the late 1880s when the arsenal transformed itself from a maker of saddles to a maker of cannons. Nevertheless, there is also a phenomena that is of-ten missed by those outside of the arsenal fence line during these transitory times ̶ the arsenal becomes more efficient. Today, the buzz words of these ef-ficiency efforts are LEAN Six Sigma and Value Engi-neering. But, to the typical arsenal worker it is simply doing something better today than they did yesterday. Behind these transformations and phenomenons are “catalyst of change.” In essence, individuals who take a step back from their daily work to visualize what they could do to effect positive change. One of today’s catalysts at the arsenal is Peter Nor-thup, a machinist who graduated at the top of his ap-prentice class just last year. Northup has been working the production line for 60mm and 81mm mortars for about one year. Re-cently, as he was resetting the tooling on a 30-year-old lathe machine for a 60mm mortar tube that had just machined an 81mm mortar tube, he looked down the production bay at two newer machines that sat idle. Northup was concerned about how three different types of mortar tubes were being channeled into this one machine and how that one machine may be a sin-gle point of failure. In essence, if that machine broke down there was not a backup machine that work could be immediately diverted to. The other thing that came to Northup’s mind in regards to the two idle machines was that if those ma-chines were reprogrammed to accommodate mortar machining they could save a good deal of setup time between production lines. At the former lathe loca-tion, Northup ran two different types of 60mm mortar tubes and one type of 81mm mortar tube through three different machining operations. By using additional machines, the requirement to switch the tooling from 60mm to 81mm tubes would be eliminated. “My training here paid off,” Northup said. “I was

Peter Cont. trained to seek out waste in our production processes and then to eliminate that waste. In this case, we should enjoy cost savings on every tube, while also reducing our risk of failure.” To take the value of Northup’s effort a step further, it in one thing to brainstorm a great idea but to be truly great the idea has to be able to be implemented. The success to Northup’s concept was on his ability to get a machining program that was written in 1985 to interface with machines that were put on line in 2011. He turned to the arsenal’s programming office for assistance. “The arsenal programmers thought it was a great idea but they could not rewrite the program at the time due to other pressing needs,” Northup said. “So, I asked Leon Rosko, my foreman, if I could take a look at doing the reprogramming myself.” Armed with permission from Rosko, Northup, with the support from the programming team, as well as from the quality control team, launched into an area of expertise (programming) that for the most part was self taught. After four days of painstaking data input and machining, Northup had one of two machines repro-grammed to support 60mm mortar production. “I could not have done this without the exceptional support of quality control and programming,” Northup said. “By the end of January, I will have another ma-chine reprogrammed to support mortar production.” At each lathe machine, there are three key opera-tions that are performed. By using the newer ma-chines, machining time will be reduced for each 60mm tube, thereby, reducing production costs. One of the great advantages of the Defense Depart-ment going to an Army-owned and operated manufac-turing center, such as Watervliet, is that all savings are returned back to the customer … the U.S. taxpayer. Northup’s effort is truly a great example of going beyond the call of duty and speaks volumes about the tradition, history, and pride of the Watervliet Arsenal workforce. Had Northup suggested his idea in early 2013, he would have qualified for a monetary award through the Army’s Suggestion Program. The Army, however, suspended this morale-boosting program in 2013. But Northup said he didn’t make the improvements for the money, he did it to make the arsenal better.



after 32 years of service, just one more mission to go

Always the consummate speaker, as well as arsenal cheerleader, Jake Peart, white shirt, is often the arsenal’s “go-to” person for leading visitors through the difficult subject of military manufacturing. In this photo, Peart is walking Army Materiel Command Commander Gen. Dennis L. Via, to Peart’s immediate right, through the arsenal’s manufacturing center in December 2014.

By John B. Snyder

Story continues on page 9, see Jake

When Jake Peart left the Air Force in 1975, he believed that his days in the military were over. Af-ter four years of performing and then supervising the maintenance of jet propulsion systems, he sim-ply wanted to go back home and let his hair grow ̶ which remains one of his goals today. But 40 years later, he is still in the military and finding it hard to leave even though he has hit his personal targeted age for retirement. After all, he has paid his dues having amassed more than 65,000 hours of credible, distinguished work at the arsenal. But the reasons for his staying are not the same as what drew him to the Watervliet Arsenal in the first place. “Right after I got out of the Air Force, I turned down an opportunity to work at the arsenal,” Jake said. “I took a job at General Electric instead because

I thought that GE was the land of more opportunity.” But what Jake learned is that in the corporate world, opportunity is often short-lived when the bot-tom line is influenced by shareholders. After four years of a dramatic rise at GE, he found himself clean-ing buildings just trying to hang on during a workforce reduction. It didn’t work. He was laid off in 1980. For two years, Jake said he bounced around from job to job until a machine tool operator’s job opened up at the arsenal in 1982. Despite his mechanical ex-perience that he gained while in the Air Force and at GE, Jake thought that his turning down an arsenal job several years earlier would come back to haunt him. It did not.

Jake Cont.


Photo by John B. SnyderJake Peart, left, sharing a laugh with former arsenal Commander Col. Scott Fletcher in 2009. Peart had just received an award from Fletcher for his efforts to improve Value Engineering at the arsenal.

Jake landed the job, to which he credited to his having Veteran status. But to anyone who knows Jake, they would more likely give credit to Jake’s ability to communicate. A few years ago, an arsenal story lightheartedly poked fun at Jake as one of the best song and dance men since the great Vaudeville-era. But what many senior Army leaders have recently discovered is that Jake’s passion for the arsenal, his knowledge of every manufacturing activity, and his ability to cap-tivate audiences with his rhetoric has allowed him to tell the arsenal’s story like no other. His rise through arsenal manufacturing has given him a frame of reference that few have. From ma-chine tool operator to apprentice to machinist to quality control inspector to production planning and control, Jake has served at almost every critical level of Army manufacturing. In an era of declining defense budgets there is intense competition among the commercial and government manufacturing centers that make up the defense industrial base. The type of manufacturing the arsenal does is sometimes difficult to explain to those who influence the award of a govenment contract. And that is where the talent of Jake Peart comes in. Earlier this month, there was a flurry of activity here as several senior Army leaders, from the Army Materiel Command’s Gen. Dennis L. Via to TACOM Life Cycle Management Command’s Maj. Gen. Gwen Bingham, made the arsenal as one of their must see manufacturing centers. These visits cen-tered at assessing the arsenal’s current capability and capacity to accept new multimillion-dollar weapon contracts. If there was any doubt on whether or not the ar-senal could handle a large influx of new workload, those doubts were left on the production floor as Jake and his briefing team told the arsenal story by breaking down complex machining concepts into simple layman’s terms that even the arsenal’s public affairs officer could comprehend. The end result of those visits is that the arsenal

has received a significant plus-up in workload begin-ning this month. And so, why is Jake still here? While Jake was packing his office up a few weeks ago in anticipation of a January 2015 retirement, the arsenal commander talked to him about staying for a few more months to help transition the command through the start up of a major howitzer production surge. Although Jake said he told the commander that he needed to talk to his wife first, in his heart he already had the answer. “The arsenal has provided me great opportuni-ties as well as provided a good middle-class life for my family,” Jake said. “I knew that I owed the arse-nal more than it owed me and therefore, I feel great that before I leave I can pay the arsenal back at least something for its many years of support that it gave me and to my family.” More than 32 years ago, Jake arrived hungry for an opportunity. He will leave in the near future having filled that hunger with a strong sense of pride and pas-sion for the Watervliet Arsenal. For his many years of support, and for responding to the commander’s call of duty, Jake is well deserving of being this month’s arsenal Face of Strength.


Photos provided by Maira Senick

It seems that every time we watch the news or read a newspaper there is a new situation somewhere in the United States that reminds us of the differences in our society, be it racial, gender, age, economical, religious, political, or cultural. And sadly, some of these reported situations seem to emphasize that diversity is not yet accepted in many of our communities. Nevertheless, I considered myself fortunate to have been taught at home to appreciate, not fear, differences and this appreciation has only been reinforced by all the benefits that I have personally received as a His-panic in America. This acceptance of diversity was recently reinforced when I was thousands of miles from home, all alone, completing a 800 km walking trail known as the Cami-no de Santiago (“Way of St. James”) across northern Spain. This trail stretches from St. Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. For more than a 1,000 years, pilgrims have completed the journey by foot, travelling through the main cities of Pamplona, Burgos, and Leon to arrive at the tomb of St. James in the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela. While it started in the 9th century as a religious path, modern-day pilgrims from around the world take on this trail for diverse reasons; sense of adventure, physi-cal challenge, cultural enlightenment, or simply, to get away. I first heard of the Camino growing up in Puerto Rico and it went straight to the top of My Bucket List.

Story continues on page 11, see Walk

When you accept diversity, you

are never alone

By Maira Senick, Benét Labs

Castle by the Camino in Ponferrada

Camino Trail Marker

Camino Trail


In 2011, as I approached my 50th birthday, I did what many do when approaching this milestone; I dusted off My Bucket List. While I knew that I could not get away for the five weeks that it takes the average pilgrim to complete the Camino Trail, I knew I had to at least start it. So, that’s how it came to be that two weeks before my 50th birthday I found myself in a small French village at the foot of the Pyrenees with a 17-mile walk ahead of me to Ron-cesvalles in Spain ̶ this was Day One. That morning, as I was getting ready to start the walk, all of the sudden it hit me; there I was on my own, thousands of miles away from home, and about to take on the Pyr-enees. I cried. What was I thinking? After awhile, I took a deep breath, grabbed my backpack, and away I went. The second I stepped outside and felt the early morning air, my fears melted away. Within 15 minutes on the Camino Trail, I was conversing with a mother-daughter team from Denver; Linda and Cindy. Cindy had just graduated from high school and her mom had reckoned the Camino was probably the last opportu-nity for a while to share a travel adventure with her daughter. But the perceived challenge of the day ahead was only in my mind. It was then that I realized that I needed to walk more like Cindy. Despite her age, or maybe because of it, Cindy walked with the convic-tion that Roncesvalles was just around the corner. By focusing on the one step ahead of her, Cindy was en-joying her present and was not letting worries about the upcoming steep hills prevent her from enjoying the gorgeous scenery we were walking by. There I was about to turn 50 and learning life les-sons from a 17-year-old. The fact is that there are les-sons to be learned everywhere. When you are open to

learn from the differences, better yet, despite the dif-ferences, you realize that you are never on your own. Cindy taught me a lesson that day, which started with me crying, and remains one of the best days of my life. As I continued heading west on the Camino, I was privileged to meet people from all over the world, all ages, from all walks of life, and with very varied mo-tivations for doing the Camino. In contrast with the

daily routine back home, everything about each day on the trail was dif-ferent; language, people, food, scenery, even the sparsely populated me-dieval villages along the path were a constant re-minder of how different my life was back home. On one occasion, I found myself in a thun-derstorm and the closest village, Estella, was still a few kilometers ahead. Admittedly scared and

wondering what to do, I was suddenly joined by four other walkers as we all ran to the same shelter; an abandoned horse barn by the side of the trail. There we were, a young lady from Australia, a 70-year-old lady from Tampa, and two best friends from Japan. Despite our diversity, we all felt part of a traveling community, taking care of each other. Any differences that we may have had were com-pletely irrelevant as we focused on a common goal; reaching Santiago. I often look at pictures of this walking adventure and find it interesting how the one picture where I have the biggest smile is the picture taken while taking shelter from a thunderstorm in an abandoned barn. Misery loves company. In the summer of 2014, I went back to the Camino to finish the last 385 km (240 miles). Tough as it was, on July 13, 2014, my husband, John, held my hand as we walked into the Cathedral of Santiago. The lessons I learned along the way were many. But the one that stands out among them is that we can achieve more in life when we choose to be open to others and when you do so, you are never really alone.

Walk Cont.

Puente La Reina, Spain


The Salvo

NY State VFW Commander

Michael Pascal visits Watervliet,

Benét

vol. 14, No. 1 U.S. army Watervliet arsenal Jan. 31, 2014


The Salvovol. 14, No. 2 U.S. army Watervliet arsenal Feb. 28, 2014

Building the foundation for future generations


The Salvo

vol. 14, No. 3 U.S. army Watervliet arsenal March 31, 2014

How many companies put their CEO’s initials on their products?

We do and it speaks volumes about our confidence in our quality!

Quality Control Story on Page 3


The Salvo

vol. 14, No. 4 U.S. army Watervliet arsenal april 30, 2014

Secretary of the Army pins safety award on the

Watervliet Arsenal for the third time in four years.

Award Story on Page 3


Secretary of the Army John McHugh

Former Deputy CommanderEd McCarthy

Arsenal CommanderCol. Lee H. Schiller Jr.

vol. 14, No. 5 U.S. army Watervliet arsenal May 31,

A Soldier never questions anything stamped

“Watervliet Arsenal”Ever wondered why?

Story on Page 3


The Salvo

Quality Control Inspector Charles Robinson checking a 60 mm mortar tube

vol. 14, No. 7 U.S. army Watervliet arsenal July 31, 2014

The SalvoNot ready to ride into the sunset,

the arsenal hosted a workload summit this month that looked into the future

for actions that will ensure its long-term viability

Lt. Gen. Patricia McQuistionAMC Deputy Commander

Mike MerrillArsenal Quality

Arsenal Stories Had Reach That Went Well Beyond the Arsenal Fence Line in 2014

-Arsenal stories were picked up by higher commands and staffs more than 105 times in 2014.-Many times an Arsenal story was either #1 Story or one of the Top 10 Stories of the day for such organizations as the Department of the Army, Assistant Secre-tary of the Army, Army G4, and for the Army Materiel Command.-Our stories and photos on social media sites are viewed more than 20,000 times every month.

U.S. Army's Watervliet Arsenal's December 2014 newsletter: The Salvo

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