To silence Luna, Aguinaldo appointed him as Chief of War Operations on 26 September 1898 and assigned the rank of brigadier general. In quick succession, he was made the Director or Assistant Secretary of War and Supreme Chief of the Republican Army on 28 September, arousing the envy of the other generals who were fighting since the first phase of the Revolution. Meanwhile, Luna felt that bureaucratic placebos were being thrown his way when all he wanted was to organize and discipline the enthusiastic but ill-fed and ill-trained troops into a real army.