In the time frame we are dealing with, Man portable radios were not an abundant commodity. In fact, the lowest level, you would find one is at Company or possibly Battalion. They did however rely extensively on field phones and wire in the defense. In order to communicate up and down the chains of command below Battalion, Leaders relied on [i]Runners[/i]. There may have been 3-5 privates assigned at the Platoon and Company level, who's job it was, to carry messages from Platoon Leader to Company Commander and/or Company Commander to Battalion. Since most intelligence at the [i]tactical[/i] level is urgent, more than likely the runner was a fast runner, for there was always the risk of being captured or killed by the enemy.

But I was getting into the moment when I wrote that last post and slipped the RTO in there. Most likely the Platoon Command Post (CP) consists of the Platoon Leader (PL), Platoon Sergeant (PSG) and three Runners.