LITMIR.BIZ

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watched the color drain from his face.

      “Good morning, Madam Secretary. Yes, Madam Secretary. Yes, Madam Secretary. Yes, Madam Secretary.”

      He looked out at me and then to CPT. Wagner. “CPT. Wagner, you’re dismissed.”

      As we walked out of the headquarters, Robin asked, “How did you do that?”

      “Sec. Jane Minder is a good friend. She also doesn’t like someone being chewed out because of something that is out of their control. Now get your things and let’s get to the airport.”

      We returned to Fort Benning with Robin. Katie was commanding First Battalion through drill and ceremony marching. I enjoyed watching troopers marching. God, did they look good. Katie had done a great job with them. Teaching troopers to march in formation with precision is hard work.

      “Robin, get settled in then return to my office so we can discuss your training.”

      “Yes, sir, I’ll be back in an hour.”

      I watched Katie put another trooper in charge of the formation.

      She came to me. “The ceremony will be in about two weeks. Next week, we will activate the unit battalions. I started marching them in formation.”

      I looked at her. “Have you marched in a parade before?”

      “No, Paul got some of his friends from other units to help teach us how to do it.”

      “Good thinking. They are doing a great job. Come with me, we have things to do.”

      When we got to my office, we looked at the details for the ceremony. I informed Katie, “The colors are cased until we’re activated. In the ceremony, the colors will be uncased to represent the activation of our unit.”

      “Will we be standing long?”

      “It should only be two hours or so.”

      Katie’s eyes got big. “Wow, that’s a lot of time in one place.”

      “That’s if everything goes right on time.”

      “What do you mean by that?”

      “I’ve waited four hours before a ceremony started. The general was four hours late for the ceremony.”

      Robin walked into our meeting.

      “Robin Wagner, meet Katharine Wilson. She’s my XO. We were just going over the ceremony.”

      “How do you do, Robin?”

      “I’m excited to be here.”

      “Robin, Tom will be in charge of your training. You will do field exercises from squad to battalion level. We will see to it you get training prior to each exercise.”

      “OK, now what happens?”

      “Let’s go outside and check on the parade practice.”

      I led the way outside and across the street to the parade field. Once there, I noticed the troopers were not as sharp as earlier. I looked for and spotted Tom, Karen, and Pam.

      “Commanders, form your units. Anyone not in this regiment, come talk to me.”

      A dozen sergeants came to me. I thanked them for their help, asking if they could return in the morning. As they left, Candice saluted and reported the unit was formed. I returned her salute.

      “At ease. As you all know, we will be activated in about two weeks. We will practice so we look sharp in a pass and review.”

      “Sir, why do we have to do all this marching? We look pretty good marching.”

      “When I arrived, you all looked very good. When I came out of my office, you all looked terrible. Ranks not aligned, troopers out of step. We will quit for today and continue tomorrow. Staff meeting after this formation. Commanders, take command of your units.”

      As I walked to the staff conference room, Katie ran to catch up.

      “What is the staff meeting for?”

      “We need to map out training for the soldiers. Training teams will come here to conduct training. I would like to see the troopers sent to get training with other soldiers.”

      “I agree, however, Father is afraid of letting the soldiers have too much freedom.”

      My phone rang. “Hello, this is COL Preston. Yes, I can do that. We will try to get it out on a timely basis. Good, talk to you later.”

      “Who was that?”

      “Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.”

      “Don’t tell me—Dad.”

      “You got it. He wants to be sure to get the results of all training.”

      When we reached the conference room, everyone else was right behind us. Once they were seated, I started. “I have four command sergeant majors that served with me coming.”

      Katie looked at me. “I thought you wanted to promote from within the unit.”

      “Normally I do. However, these individuals know how a battalion runs. Their expertise will help their commanders run their units better.”

      Karen looked at me. “When will they be here?”

      “They will be here tomorrow morning. They came because I’m here.”

      Tom asked, “Do they know about the units?”

      “No, I will lay everything out for them. I will let them decide on whether to stay or not. In front of you is the training agenda. Please open.”

      When they opened the folders in front of them, they found only blank paper. Karen smiled. The others were confused.

      Tom spoke up first. “I guess we are here to try to set up training.”

      “Tom, you’re correct. We need to make sure the troopers are trained from fire team to battalion level. Once we get them properly trained, we will do some regiment level training.”

      Pam asked, “How do we get the whole regiment into the field?”

      “We don’t, for the moment. We train the battalion staff with the regiment staff with only headquarters and headquarters company and staff. As for the whole regiment, we would need the National Training Center in California. Now, let’s get started with a training plan.”

      It was a hard five hours working on a training plan for my unit. It was far from done, but it addressed the training all my troopers would need. We decided to continue on Tuesday.

      “Tuesday at 1000 hours in the morning, parade practice formation to practice marching. At 1400 hours, we will practice the ceremony to include pass in review.”

      I was in my office early Tuesday morning, looking at all the troopers in all three battalions. Suddenly, Jamie poked her head in my office.

      “Colonel, there are four command sergeant majors here to see you.”

      “Thanks, Jamie. Let Katie know, and send them in.”

      I stood up to shake hands with everyone. In they walked; Arthur Kilbert, Ronald Fox, Carl Shelton, and Michael Underwood.

      “I want to thank everyone for coming.”

      When Katie entered, everyone’s eyes grew big.

      “Gentlemen, this is my XO, LTC Katharine Wilson.”

      Ron remarked, “She looks so young.”

      Katie looked at Ron. “I would thank you for that, but I’m twenty-three.”

      They looked at me for an explanation.

      “We’re reactivating the 289th Infantry Regiment. However, LTC Thomas James, MAJ Robin Wagner, and myself are the only veterans in the unit.”

      Mike

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