Major and Mrs. J.W. Davis

Random pictures of John from 1974-1994

About the Images

bi

Bio

Until September 11, 2001, there was little awareness by the public of the special emergency planning conducted at the White House.  There exists a very exclusive group of men and women to handle emergencies that has not been acknowledged or discussed, mostly for the protection of the United States.  Major Davis was one of very few hand-selected officers in the US Army to be cleared to handle highly classified information.  He served in this capacity for four years prior to his retirement with highest honors in 1997. 

Major Davis can share a bit of the inside information about programs vital to our country's national defense and safety. During his 20 year career with the US Army Major Davis progressed through the ranks from Private to Major at the ripe old age of 33.  During his active duty as an officer he was selected for command four times serving as the commanding officer of combat engineer organizations, communications and information systems organizations, commanding officer of highly classified programs for the survival and operations of The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense during national emergencies and to the White House, the President of the United States including all legal presidential successors. Major Davis was responsible during peacetime to ensure plans, procedures and codes were distributed and tested around the world to ensure command and control of all US Forces remained in the hands of the President.  

During his term of duty at the White House Major Davis was responsible for the emergency relocation plans for the President and successors.  Emergencies at the White House included everything from the President stubbing his toe and assassination attempts, to terrorist attacks all the way to global nuclear war. He formulated multiple plans that had to be foolproof and ready for implementation from wherever in the world the President was located.  This position required extensive knowledge of all military operations, daily intelligence briefings, current terrorist threats, current international politics, extensive travel, ability to conduct local regional and worldwide tests, inspect and design facilities, negotiate communication treaties with other government, plan and conduct emergency conferences, coordinate national, regional and local emergency broadcast system tests.  Davis initiated a complete redesign of the National Emergency Broadcast System, which hadn't been done since its inception in the 50’s. 

As a communications officer he was often chosen to accompany the President wherever he went whether it be the golf courses or another country.  He traveled with both President Bush and President Clinton traveling on over 55 trips within the United States and 6 overseas trips of the Presidents from Poland to South Korea. 

Although he is retired from the US Army Major Davis remained very active in Emergency Planning.  He attended several Federal Emergency Management Agency training courses, also completing local college courses and business classes.  He was a co-founder and on the board of directors for a regional emergency planning committee that included Eastern Washington, North Idaho, and Western Montana.  Davis, having a very unique knowledge of federal, state, local government programs for support during emergencies founded the group for the purpose of sharing plans and procedures at all levels and to conduct joint tests.  One of his primary concerns was the plans that each agency had and the lack of information exchange and multilevel testing of the plans between agencies.  He knew that private business had no idea of the capabilities of the government to assist and the government had little knowledge of the needs of business or the need to get systems in place to restoring infrastructure to assist business in restoring productivity. He sat on two north Idaho local emergency planning committees and was a volunteer assistant director of one counties emergency operation center.   He intends to briefly discuss types of disaster plans that can be utilized for the safety of the President, the presidential successors and how the successor system works beyond the Vice President if both the President and Vice President die.