After his undergraduate studies concluded in 1975, Chávez entered active-duty military service. Chávez's first assignment was as commander of a communications platoon attached to a counter-insurgency force—the Manuel Cedeño Mountain Infantry Battalion, headquartered in Barinas and Cumaná. In 1976, it was tasked with suppressing a guerilla insurgency staged by the Hoxhaist Partido Bandera Roja (Red Flag Party). Despite this, Chávez saw little actual combat; this was due to a low density of insurgent activity in the Cumaná region. Later, in 1977, Chávez was appointed as a communications officer at the Center of Tactical Operations in San Mateo; it was here that Chávez first received first-hand and hands-on experience in counter-insurgency tactics. Chávez later recalled that, during these years, he experienced growing sympathy for the waning guerilla movements—the very groups he was tasked with countering. He harbored a growing dislike of what he viewed as corruption among the military hierarchy. He perceived such problems as a direct result of political corruption.