38 - New Military Leader for 'PS Magazine'

A change of command ceremony June 20 at Redstone Arsenal (Huntsville, Alabama) introduced Colonel Charles “Chuck” B. Salvo as the new leader of the U.S. Army Logistics Support Activity (LOGSA), which is under the U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC). The PS Magazine program is an element of LOGSA.

In the image below, Major General Gustave F. Perna, right, AMC’s Deputy Chief of Staff (G-3/4) passes the guidon to Colonel Salvo at AMC Headquarters.

Colonel Salvo succeeds Colonel Robert P. “Pat” Sullivan, who was the official host for the PS Magazine Sixtieth Anniversary Celebration in June of 2011. To see a video clip of his remarks on that occasion, click here. 

General Dennis L. Via commands AMC. To see a video clip of his remarks at the PS Sixtieth Anniversary Celebration, click here. 

At that time, he wore three stars and was Deputy Commanding General of AMC. Since then, he received his fourth star and was advanced to the top spot at AMC.

Colonel Salvo is a native of Niagara Falls, New York, and graduated from the State University of New York with a Bachelor of Science in biology, and was commissioned Infantry in 1986. After completing the infantry officer basic course and ranger school, he was assigned to the 2nd Battalion (ABN) 187th Infantry battalion, Fort Kobbe, Panama, where he served as a rifle platoon leader, company executive officer, and earned the Expert Infantryman Badge, Jungle Expert Badge, and graduated from jumpmaster school. He was selected for promotion to captain and re-branched Quartermaster in 1989 and was assigned to the 407th S&T Battalion, 82d Airborne Division where he deployed for Operation Desert Shield/Storm and served as a company commander and battalion S3. At Fort Lee, Virginia, he served as aide-de-camp for the CG Combined Arms Support Command and taught advanced aerial delivery school. In the 10th Mountain Division, he served as DISCOM S3, and Support Operations Officer, and later Executive Officer, 210th FSB.

 At Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, he earned a Master’s Degree in acquisition and procurement management, graduated from the Combined Arms Staff School and was later assigned to Joint Forces Command. After graduating from the Joint and Combined Warfighting School in Norfolk, VA, he was selected for a command slot in the 3rd Infantry Division where he led the 203rd Forward Support Battalion/Brigade Support Battalion for 36 months and led the organization through two Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) tours, to include OIF I, two Combat Training Center rotations, and transformed the organization from a forward support battalion to a brigade support battalion consisting of five companies and over 1,200 soldiers.

After graduating from the Army War College, he was assigned as Director, force integration and joint concepts, Army G4, the Pentagon. He was selected to command of the Army and Air Force Exchange, for OIF/OEF and Europe, a $6 billion/year in sales organization, for 36 months, and led the organization through the drawdown in Iraq, the surge in Afghanistan, and transformation in Europe. Prior to assuming command of LOGSA, he served as Executive Officer to the Executive Deputy to the Commanding General, AMC.

Colonel Salvo’s awards and decorations include Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters, Ranger Tab, Combat Action Badge, Expert Infantryman Badge, Rigger Badge, Master Parachutist Badge, Jungle Expert Badge, Panamanian and Australian Airborne wings, the Army Staff Badge, and the Army physical fitness badge (current).

He is married to Sondra and has two children: Sam (16) and Hollie (19).

• • •

Here’s an “OOPS!”  With some of my “Heads Up” text regarding an upcoming blogpost about Master Sergeant Bull Dozer, I left a misperception with a few readers that the Engineers’ icon from the PS past was returning to the magazine’s pages for an extended gig. Not so! It was just a cameo appearance. You’ll see all the details in my next post.

—Fitz

UPCOMING POSTINGS:

¶ Master Sergeant Bull Dozer Revisited

¶ A View of PS at the Four-Star Level

¶ Best of PS by Perspective Instructional Communications

¶ A Covey of Connies—World War II to Today

37 - 'PS' Covers Without Sigs

Reactions to our recent Blogpost 36 regarding new offices for the PS Magazine staff included this from Erwin K. Roberts: “Thank you for the update. It got me curious. Obviously Joe's [Joe Kubert’s] organization is carrying on, and very well, I'm sure. But, who, if anyone yet, is the new cover artist?”

Roberts is a life-long comics fan who joined the U.S. Army in September, 1969. A week or so later he saw Will Eisner's familiar signature on an issue of PS. With the exception of a few breaks, he followed PS until he retired from the Missouri Army National Guard in 1996. When his son prepared to deploy to Iraq in 2004, Roberts was relieved to find PS still going strong with Joe Kubert as the signature artist. Following Will Eisner’s death, Roberts founded a Yahoo group devoted to PS. These days Roberts writes thrillers in several genres. Several of Erwin K. Roberts’s works are available on Amazon. 

Questions regarding the absence of an artist’s signature on Front Covers of PS are not new, but they have been heard with increasing frequency since the death of Joe Kubert last year.

The image displayed above (a repeat from our Blogpost 35), the Front Cover of PS Magazine Issue 719 (October 2012), is the last PS cover that is attributable to Joe, even though it does not bear his iconic sig. He penciled the entire piece and inked the principal foreground character in what turned out to be his last session at the drawing board before he went into the hospital.

This discussion is accompanied by displays of the Front Covers of the first six PS Magazine issues of 2013, all unsigned.

Beginning late last year, I’ve had several conversations regarding this subject with Stuart Henderson, the PS Production Manager, and Pete Carlsson, Senior Art Director for Tell-A-Graphics, the Kubert business entity that has held the PS contract for creative art, design, and pre-press services since PS 579 in February of 2001.

Pete says that the presence of Joe’s signature on PS covers indicated, as it should, that Joe was an overarching presence who was involved to some degree in every production aspect involving a cover. “Following Joe’s death, a more pronounced division of labor has evolved that results in team-effort covers for which a single signature would be inappropriate,” Pete said.

“For that reason, and with the concurrence of the PS leadership, our decision for now is that the covers will not be signed,” Pete said.

Henderson points out that this is not unprecedented. “Backes Graphic Productions, which produced Issues 429 through 578, from August 1988 through January of 2001, did so with unsigned covers,” Stuart said.

At this point in time, the 150 issues produced by Jack and Diane Backes represent the second longest period of PS production. Will Eisner’s 227 issues still stand at the top of the stack.

In two months, with PS 729 (August), the Kubert shop will have equaled the Backes Graphic Productions record and in September (PS 730) will move into the second-to-Eisner spot. That will still be 76 issues short of Maestro Eisner’s tally.

The historic information provided here is derived from a time-line graphic that includes PS Editors, Artists, and U.S. Army Duty Stations, and is available in Appendix A of Will Eisner and PS Magazine. 

—Fitz

UPCOMING POSTINGS:

¶ Master Sergeant Bull Dozer Revisited

¶ PS Magazine's Immediate Military Commander

¶ A View of PS at the Four-Star Level

¶ Best of PS by Perspective Instructional           

     Communications

¶ A Covey of Connies—World War II to Today

36 — New Offices for ‘PS Magazine’ Staff

PS Magazine staff operations recently moved into new offices in this recently refurbished building on Redstone Arsenal (Huntsville, Alabama). The space allocated to the publication’s activities faces the second set of windows from the near-front corner of the building pictured above.

PS has been located at Redstone Arsenal since June of 1993. Its move there followed a four-step circuitous routing from Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland (June 1951-January 1956) to Raritan Arsenal, New Jersey (January 1967-October 1962) to Fort Knox, Kentucky (October 1962 to July 1973) to Lexington-Blue Grass Army Depot (July 1973 to June 1993).

The picture below shows the general PS Magazine office area.

Stuart Henderson, PS production manager, is pictured, at right, in his new space, and, below, escorting visitors through the new publication offices.

 

The picture below shows the spacious access way outside the PS offices.

These photos were made available through the courtesy of Creed Henderson, Stuart’s son.

An interesting footnote—for the first time since the autumn of 1953, the PS Magazine editor (Jon Pierce, ninth in the succession of editors) has an honest-to-goodness real office, door and all! Sixty years ago, Jim Kidd, as editor, and I, as his managing editor, made a drastic and deliberate change to the then existing culture of the publication by converting the office layout to a newsroom “bullpen” arrangement (as I described in detail in Will Eisner and PS Magazine).

The PS program continues as an element of the US Army Logistics Support Activity (LOGSA), under the US Army Materiel Command, all located at Redstone Arsenal.

-—p.e.f.

UPCOMING POSTINGS:

¶ The Return of Master Sergeant Bull Dozer

¶ PS Magazine's Immediate Military Commander

¶ A View of PS at the Four-Star Level

¶ Best of PS by Perspective Instructional Communications

¶ A Covey of Connies—World War II to Today