Skaggs struggled to keep his eyes from crossing as Cameron continued and then he lost it. “Colonel, that’s not a chain of command. It’s a goddamned Chinese crossword puzzle.” He stood and reached for his briefing folder. “I think that’s it for me, gentlemen. I’m going to fire a message up through a chain of command I trust and seek clarification of orders. I’ll be in contact when I have something to report.”
Nodding absently at the men on the working party moving gear into his new command post, Lieutenant Colonel Black Jack Mattson, commanding the Battalion Landing Team built around 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines, backed off from the building and tried a different perspective. It didn’t help. He’d been at it for an hour as his troops set up housekeeping but he couldn’t make himself comfortabl
