A sergeant, he took temporary command of his platoon after the senior NCO was killed before his eyes.
"In connection with the completion of the routine springtime training phase for troops that involved their deployment to training grounds in the Rostov, Belgorod and Bryansk regions, among others, the president of Russia gave the command to the defence minister to return the troops taking part in the exercises to their home bases," the Kremlin said.
These were the precursors to the juggernaut now known simply as the Islamic State, which has, under Bagdhadi's command, overrun much of the west and centre of the country and eastern Syria, and drawn the US military back to a deeply destabilised region less than three years after it left vowing never to return.
All command sizeable constituencies; all, however, bring some serious baggage into this election.
However, Lord O'Donnell, the former cabinet secretary who was intimately involved in the 2010 negotiations, said the key constitutional requirement for a prime minister is simply the ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons.
Speaking to the conference from the US military's central command centre in Florida, spokesman Colonel Brian Hoey denied that Al-Jazeera was a target.
So, as the final protracted fade-out into total silence and darkness began, the closing lines rang out: "Say a command", repeated three times; then "Command not recognised", twice.
"The rules are very clear and they are laid out in the Cabinet Manual and that says the ability of government to command the confidence of the elected House of Commons is central to its authority to govern".
The former cabinet secretary, who said he would take to the airwaves as soon as the polls closed on Thursday night to remind politicians of the guidelines laid down in the cabinet manual, told the Today programme that the key qualification to enter No 10 was the ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons.
Andriy Parubiy, head of Ukraine's national security and defence council, told the Guardian that these were all coordinated from a single anti-terrorism command centre, but numerous sources on the ground attest to the fact that coordination is poor, and there are major concerns over how ready the volunteer brigades are for combat.
A month later it busily put out a command paper, Action for Roads, which was supposed to detail how that would be spent, promising 52 new schemes, including 221 miles of new motorway lane.
