Larry Icenogle has been named the 2019 recipient of the Joe Galloway Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his service to Army Public Affairs both in uniform and as a Department of the Army Civilian.
Larry, a retired Colonel with nearly 50 years of service both in uniform and as Army civilian, is the consummate public affairs officer. He has served as installation PAO at both Fort Knox, Ky., and Fort Sill, Ok. John Eagles, who followed Larry as base PAO, recalled that integrity was Larry’s watchword. “He expected everyone else to have a similar approach to doing business. He felt strongly that once a lesson was taught, you got on with your business. He was a taskmaster who expected everyone, to include himself to do things the right way, and if there was a teaching moment, he made sure the lesson was taught, but no grudge was held. No matter the situation, his attitude was: ‘Get together, be a team, and do things the right way.’” At Fort Sill, Keith Pannell, media relations officer, said Larry is, “fiercely loyal to his employees and to the concept of open public affairs. He is always a teacher of the art of public affairs, and his Fort Sill employees were apt pupils. It was really like Dumbledore teaching, but giving the young wizards room to spread their wings. Even though Larry came from the ‘old school,’ he was not adverse to emerging media and new ways of doing things. He would sit down with the webmaster and learn how to do that job. He never asked an employee to do something he couldn't be knowledgeable about.”
In August 1990, Larry deployed from his posting at the U.S. Army War College to escort the first American journalists into Saudi Arabia to cover the first Gulf War. He later helped establish U.S. Central Command's Joint Information Bureau in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and, served as its Deputy Director during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Larry served as the public affairs officer for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John M. Shalikashvili from 1993 to 1995. This was a pivotal time for the Department of Defense, as it reshaped the force from the Cold War legacy to an agile, digital force. Larry was instrumental in ensuring the American public understood their transforming military. Later Larry was deputy director for public affairs in U.S. European Command during a period when the eyes of the world were on preserving the hard-won peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina under the Dayton Accords. This was a time of tremendous transformation in Public Affairs, as DoD was learning to leverage the Internet as a new way to reach varied publics with often competing priorities, as well as dealing with the rapid spread of disinformation.
Larry's considers his time as Commandant of the Defense Information School (June 1998 to August 2000) the "crown jewel" of his Army career. While there, he oversaw consolidation of what had been three separate schoolhouses from other locations with different missions and radically different, solidly entrenched cultures, procedures and processes. John Banusiewicz, currently managing editor of DoD News for the Defense Media Activity, who worked at DINFOS during Larry's tenure as commandant, said, "He took a Tower of Babel and got everyone on the same page, and he did it with a leadership style that was unifying. I know those of us who worked at the Fort Ben schoolhouse believed our way of doing things was the right way. Larry knew everyone felt that way about how it was at their old schoolhouse, and he nurtured an environment that melded each old schoolhouse's best practices. The give and take started out with suspicion on all three fronts, but quickly turned into an atmosphere of cooperation and a genuine desire on the part of all concerned to come up with the best ways to have all functional areas working from the same playbook. In a word, that's leadership."
Today Larry continues to serve soldiers and their families. Since 2014, he has been a member of Bugles Across America, an organization founded to provide a live rendition of “Taps” by a real bugler at the funeral of every American veteran. He joined BAA the day after sounding “Taps” at his stepfather’s funeral. In the past five years, he's averaged three to four funerals, memorial services, or other ceremonies each month. He’s also the official bugler for American Legion Post 13, in Pasadena, California.
The Joe Galloway Lifetime Achievement Award is an annual award presented to a practitioner whose accomplishments have made sustained and major contributions to the profession of communications in support of the Army and the Army Public Affairs community. The Army Public Affairs Association would like to express its appreciation to ScoutComms, a communication and advocacy firm dedicated to supporting veterans, for sponsoring the Galloway Lifetime Achievement Award.
Larry will receive his award at the association’s awards dinner in Washington on May 7.
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