Sentence:  Even Rector himself was prey to this spirit of competition and he knew it , not for a more exalted office in the hierarchy of the church - his ambitions for the bishopry had died very early in his career - but for the one clear victory he had talked about to the <WSD>colonel</WSD> . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a commissioned military officer in the United States Army or Air Force or Marines who ranks above a lieutenant colonel and below a brigadier general