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Our move was far from being complete at the outset of the Tet offensive, particularly our support echelon. Throughout the month of February, we would be moving and fighting and at the same time establishing our maintenance and supply bases.
I had already worked out most of the details of moving the Division with Colonel Putnam, my very capable Chief of Staff, in case the order to move was received during my absence. Colonel Stansberry was then head of the Support Command. Between the two of them, they cut through the red tape of inter-service bureaucracy and solved the hour-by-hour problems that arose in moving the division north.
Colonel Putnam had been practicing moving the division command post long before we got the actual alert order to move. Back in Binh Dinh Province, he had held an actual practice move in which the division command post at landing zone TWO BITS was moved to An Khe, operated out of An Khe for twenty-four hours, and then transferred back to TWO BITS. At that time the heart of the forward command post was contained in two pods carried by the CH-54 Crane. One pod had a G-2, G-3 Operations Center and the other pod contained the Fire Support Coordination Center and other control elements. The forward command post had a complete communications system to pick up operational control of the division as soon as it was in place. Incidentally, these pods which looked very efficient on the surface were really a headache to emplace in Vietnam and terrible immobile once emplaced. After we moved north, we discontinued their use as impractical.
The move north was not without problems. Some of the Marine staff officers were very reluctant to accept Colonel Putnam's estimate on the space required for the division headquarters. Through an old War College friendship with Brigadier General Earl E. Anderson, the Chief of Staff of III Marine Amphibious Force, he was able to get in to see Lieutenant General Robert E. Cushman, Jr., Commanding General, III Marine Amphibious Force, and secure Landing Zone TOMBSTONE, which later became Camp Eagle. Colonel Putnam reported that there was only one bright spot in his entire battle with the staff. The Navy captain who commanded the Seabees came up and said, "Tell me WHAT you want done and in what ORDER you want it done." This was just the first example of the magnificent support we received from the Seabees.
When Colonel Rattan called me his brigade was actually oriented south and west of Quang Tri, with one fire base as far away as 20 kilometers to the west of the city. At that time, he did not have the mission of protecting the city itself. The decision to