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presence of the observers.
    “Let me see what you’ve done with the warning order you just got.” Drivon snapped Always from his thoughts, and he passed on what little he had to show.
    The silence was deafening. Immediately Always wished he had pulled out the approved staff manual and gone down the checklist step by step when his operations officer had first approached him with the news of the order. But there had been so much to do, and it had seemed premature for him to go toofar into the planning until he had formally met his commanders, familiarized himself with his battalion, and learned his equipment.
    Now he found himself trapped by Drivon, who proceeded to consume the next hour and a half explaining the ground rules of their newly founded relationship. Each staff observer then added his own views as to how his part of the operation was to be conducted, and the time stretched out well after dark. Then, as suddenly as they appeared, the observers evaporated into the night, leaving Always to try to gather up his staff, call in his waiting commanders, and recapture control of his own headquarters.
    At that moment he spied Command Sergeant Major Hope. “How are you doing, sir?”
    Always was glad to see him, his polite, smiling, knowledgeable face relieving in an instant the turmoil Always had been suffering through for the last few hours.
    “Sergeant Major, don’t you have a counterpart observer?”
    “Oh no, sir. I’m above all that, if you remember. Besides, no one has ever dared to dictate what a command sergeant major is supposed to do, so these guys down here would be out of line even trying to tell me. No sir, I neither need nor want their advice.”
    “God, Sergeant Major, I envy you!”
    “Yes, sir. I know what you’re going through. Just take it in stride. Remember, no one said this was going to be easy.”
    By now the officers had assembled, and the two men broke off their quiet conversation and moved to the front of the group. In unison the men snapped to attention, commanders up front in the lighted TOC, the staff and specialty platoon leaders to the rear.
    Major Walters now took charge of the meeting, and one by one brought up the staff officers to brief the commanders. Most of the discussions had to do with administrative details, since Always had deferred any discussion of the order until later.By his mannerisms, by his questions, by his kindness to the briefers when they were forthright and by his harshness when they were defensive, Always began to project his personality over the assembled group. A glance at Walters told him that his XO would be giving stern instructions to those briefers who had failed in the need to be thorough but concise. Again, Always was reassured at the professionalism of the group he had inherited.
    The commanders were a good-looking lot. A and B Company commanders, Captain Archer and Captain Baker, were aggressive, intelligent young men. They exuded confidence and strength; they were at ease in talking of their men and their equipment and in stating their needs, but they also exhibited an understanding of the needs of the larger unit. Both their Bradley companies, Always learned, consisted of thirteen Bradleys each, but only sixty dismounted infantry soldiers when at 100 percent strength. Three men would have to remain with each vehicle in order to keep it moving and shooting when the infantrymen dismounted. Always was aghast. He had an infantry battalion with very few infantrymen.
    Captain Carter of C Company was a short, solid tanker. His mannerisms indicated a man who was on top of every issue in his unit, almost artificially so, Always thought to himself. D Company’s Captain Dilger was a lanky Southerner, slower of speech than the others and seemingly unassuming, but there was a steeliness in his eyes that was reassuring. His fourteen tanks, Always imagined, would be a heavy punch when the time came. Added to the fourteen others under Carter, that punch should be