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Chapter 31
New Assignment
I was assigned to Col. Sullivan’s 1/4 staff as his S-2 ( Intelligence Officer ) on Feb. 12th, 1966. 37@ I was a newly minted first Lt. and had served as a platoon commander for the past year and a half. I had been in 1/4 since being mix mastered from 2/7 in Nov. I had met The Col. only once prior to reporting for duty on 2/12/’66—he had presented me with a commendation while I was serving as a platoon commander in A Co. Col. Sullivan was an experienced Marine officer having fought in WWII and Korea where he had acquired four purple hearts. He was ‘old school’ and did not suffer fools! He called his new staff and older staff together and laid out his expectations and that bar was high—as it should have been. The Col. never minced words and often gave orders himself rather than thru his XO—and the orders always carried a ‘bite’ to them—he didn’t accept excuses and wanted everything done ‘yesterday’—if not sooner! I knew that I couldn’t ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ and bemoan the fact that I was ‘new’ to the job—none of that mattered—I had a job to do and I had better damn well do it! I found that the Recon teams would be working in coordination with my office along with a team of snipers. I set up our communications ‘tree’ and outlined my
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