The phrase "a second in command of" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe someone who holds a subordinate leadership position, typically just below the primary leader in an organization or group.
Example: "As the second in command of the department, she assists the manager in overseeing daily operations."
Alternatives: "deputy of" or "assistant to the leader".
The footnote included the information that on that night, after the Ayotzinapa students had been detained, a second-in-command of the Cocula Municipal Police, César Nava González, asked a commander of the Iguala police, Francisco Valladares, where the youths were being taken: "to the 27th Battalion or to Cereso,"a local detention center?
The word also appears in combination with other military and civilian titles to denote a second-in-command or one of lower rank.
FEMA doesn't have a second-in-command and three of four associate-administrator posts are currently either vacant or only temporarily filled.
But while few analysts challenged the logic of appointing a second in command, many questioned the wisdom of picking Mr. Dyson for the job.
When the Coca-Cola Company's president abruptly resigned last March, leaving the company bereft of a second in command, Douglas N. Daft, the chairman and chief executive, said that was precisely the way he wanted it.
Travers travelled to Belfast in 2006 for a secret meeting with the second-in-command of the UVF's Brigade Staff, in an attempt to come to terms with the killing of his former colleagues and friends.
Among them was Marybeth S. Richroath, a veteran prosecutor, who was second-in-command of Mr. Giuliani's Office of Criminal Justice Coordinator and is also married to a cousin of Mr. Giuliani's.
For more than a day the president and second-in-command of the Walt Disney Co. dutifully spoke to Wall Street analysts, met with employees and even climbed aboard to personally test the ride a jolting, spinning rocket simulator with disorientation and nausea as side effects.
Now a mother, she's the first-in-command of her church brigade and takes pride in her role as a youth worker, aside from working full time at the same production company I used to work at.
Instead, I spoke to Fredrika's colleague, David Hilliard, a compact, gruff old man with a raspy voice, at one time fourth-in-command of "the greatest threat to the internal security" of the United States, according to America's top law enforcement agent, FBI director J Edgar Hoover.
In World War II he was second-in-command of a regiment in Burma (Myanmar) and commanded a battalion in India.
