“Unprecedented”
I’ve been on the road traveling the country quite a bit lately, and I’ve been giving a lot of speeches, talking to a lot of people about all that we have going on right now. I find that I keep using the same word – “unprecedented.”
I was already using that word a lot, in relation to our massive military construction workload – the largest since WWII. I was already using it in relation to our civil works construction efforts, specifically in Louisiana. And all that was before the “stimulus” bill – the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, signed by President Obama in February. Those four little letters, ARRA, are creating a mountain of work for us here at the Corps – a mountain we are ready to climb!
So, like I said, we were already using the word “unprecedented” to describe our workload, but now add to that $4.6 billion in civil works, $3.5 billion in military construction and $1 billion in Interagency and International Services work. I think the word “unprecedented” has unprecedented meaning for us now. But we are poised and ready to “get ‘er done!”