Javascript DME return value of a user field to personal profile screen

I am new to the javascript piece of portal programming and I am trying to add info from hrempusf to the personal profile screen in ESS. I have the right DME call when I post in a URL, but I am getting value of undefined from the debugger when trying to get the value on screen. Below is what I reverse engineered but my value for depPlanFields is erroring out undefined. I'm a newbie, but trying to learn on the fly. Thanks.

function GetBemsID()
{

var DMEstr = "https://lawson9-dev.aviallinc.com/cgi-lawson/dme.exe?prod=dev&file=hrempusf";
DMEstr = DMEstr + "&INDEX=heuset1";
DMEstr = DMEstr + "&KEY=" + authUser.company + "=0=" + authUser.employee;
DMEstr = DMEstr + "&FIELD=a-field";
DMEstr = DMEstr + "&SELECT=field-key = 74";
DMEstr = DMEstr + "&XCOLS=TRUE&XKEYS=TRUE&XRELS=TRUE&XCOUNT=TRUE&XIDA=TRUE&XNEXT=TRUE&OUT=XML";

var depPlanObj = DMECall(DMEstr);

var depPlanFields = depPlanObj.getElementsByTagName("COLS");

alert("BEMSid " + depPlanFields)
alert("depPlanObj" + depPlanObj)
}
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/////Addition of Boeing Employee ID
GetBemsID()
if (NonSpace("bemsid") != 0)
{
PersonalContent += '  '+titlefont+'BEMS Number  '
+ '  ' + datafont + depPlanFields + '  '
nextcolor = getNxtClr(nextcolor)
}
/////