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The Yellow Brick RoadA special squad leaders’ meeting is held to tell us we will be going on the offensive. Three companies are going to have patrols out constantly, and it is our intention to “initiate contact.” After that meeting Echo Company has its own meeting. The CO is sitting under a tent flap with two platoon lieutenants. A map covered with plastic is propped up against the tent wall; it's marked “classified,” and before the meeting begins each of the squad leaders gets a map too. I can tell in a glance mine isn't the same map as the one propped up there. What my map shows, it turns out, is a blowup of the middle of the big map. There's a wide blue line running across the top with smaller lines feeding into it. I guess that the big one is the river we can see in the distance.
