Dixon’s aide-de-camp stood off to one side with other secondary staff officers watching their commanding general pace back and forth much as a caged leopard does in a zoo. Scott ignored the staff officers, just as he ignored the clouds of dust being thrown up by the unloading of tanks from heavy equipment transports. Busy tending to their vehicles, the soldiers were equally oblivious to the presence of their commanding general. Their full attention was riveted on the task at hand. They were lucky, Atwater thought to himself. The tankers and their officers would parade past Dixon like bit actors in a play and then disappear from view.

Atwater, on the other hand, was seldom out of his general’s sight. His duty as an aide required that he be within arm’s reach of Dixon twenty-four hours a day. Normally this was not too difficult to deal with. Everyone on Dixon’s staff managed to find their own particular way of living around the clock in the close proximity to the proverbial five-hundred-pound gorilla. Colonel Bob Felden did what he could to help by keeping the general busy or shielding his staff officers when possible. But Felden could only do so much. He also needed to have some time for himself away from the man he served. This was especially true when the CG had worked himself into a perpetual state of agitation.

The source of his irritation under ordinary circumstances was easy to determine. Sometimes it was simply bad staff work. At other times it was a blatant display of ineptitude, a condition frequently displayed by young officers serving on the general staff for the first time. With amazing regularity one of these young lions sent Dixon through the roof by shrugging his shoulders and trying to explain away an omission by pointing out that a particular task wasn’t in his job description.

On this day there was no simple explanation for Dixon’s dark mood. As best Atwater could discern, there had been no single incident that had provoked his commanding general. If Felden knew who or what had put a burr under Dixon’s saddle, he wasn’t saying. Like everyone else, the division’s chief of staff was riding out the storm as best he could by keeping out of his commander’s way whenever possible. “The old man is under a great deal of pressure,” was all Felden offered by way of explanation when soothing bruised egos and ruffled feathers. “Remember, we’re on the verge of doing something that no American commander has had to do in over one hundred and forty years. We’re marching on our fellow citizens with the intent of engaging them in combat.”