The airborne commanders were not the only officers caught unaware.

The airborne commanders could not make detailed plans until this greatest of all problems was solved.

Put another way, the airborne commanders expected that casualties in the next action would be highest among the junior officer ranks.

Mackenzie gave the Airborne commander the official view: "Help is on the way.

To the assembled airborne commanders Browning delivered an optimistic summation.

In doing so, he knew that he must demand more of his weary and wounded men than any airborne commander ever had demanded.

If it was not taken intact and soon, airborne commanders feared the Germans would blow it up.

The biggest anxiety for the airborne commanders was in linking up with the widely scattered forces west of the Merderet.

The only consolation the airborne commanders could find in this mess was that by tradition a bad dress rehearsal leads to a great opening night.

The airborne commander, General 'Boy' Browning, had just seven days to prepare for the operation.

From previous operations, veteran airborne commanders knew that the best chance of success depended on how close to their objectives assaulting troops could be dropped.

The Airborne commander airmobiled forces in and cleared the road, but never bothered to inform Colonel Luat.

Now, under the enlarged and innovative plan Montgomery had devised, American paratroops would serve under a British airborne commander for the first time.

And, Browning had yet to prove that he possessed the administrative genius of the most experienced of all airborne commanders, General Ridgway.

Browning sent his most experienced airborne commander, Major-General Ernest Down, to India to command it.

General Grachev, 44 years old, fought in Afghanistan for five years as an airborne commander and helped thwart the attempted Soviet coup last August.

The battalion received a personnel commendation from Airborne Commander Major-General Eldridge G. Chapman.

An Army special investigator is weighing what punishment, if any, to recommend to the 101st Airborne commander, Maj. Gen. Thomas R. Turner.

A Marine Gunnery Sergeant might be ordered to a unit that was drawn from the Airborne tradition or an Airborne commander put in charge of a Marine unit.

Closer to Moscow, airborne units are better tended than other army forces, reflecting their role as a politically reliable force and the extra attention they receive from General Grachev, a former airborne commander.

CPT Benjamin Shean, Commander of the 57 EN CO, performed duties as the Airborne Commander and primary jumpmaster on the first and fourth pass.

And as his alternative defense minister, Mr. Rutskoi had named General Vladislav Achalov, like General Grachev an airborne commander - and in fact General Grachev's onetime commanding officer.

Gen. Matthew Ridgway, the 82d Airborne commander, and his deputy, Brig. Gen. Maxwell Taylor, understood the folly of Giant II, and to their credit they refused to carry it out.

Senior British airborne commanders were apprehensive about having an Air Force officer command soldiers, in case the RAF could then use this at a later date as precedent to command British airborne troops.

A rough, plain-speaking airborne commander and veteran of Afghanistan, the 44-year-old general was propelled into the Defense Ministry on the strength of refusing to attack the same Parliament center during the abortive Communist putsch in August 1991.