The military career of Hugo Chávez spans the seventeen years (1975–1992) that the later President of Venezuela spent in the Venezuelan army. Born 28 July 1954 in rural Sabaneta, Chávez entered military service upon his graduation from the Military academy of Venezuela in 1975, as a military officer. Chávez thereafter held a variety of post, command, and staff positions. At the time, he was increasingly drawn into leftist political movements. Chávez led a 1992 civilian-military coup which sought to overthrow the elected government of Carlos Andrés Pérez. Although the coup ultimately failed—ending Chávez's military career—it also brought Chávez into the national spotlight and set the stage for his future rise to political power; he eventually engaged in electioneering and political campaigning. Early military career (1975–1982) 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. At the age of 23, Chávez married Nancy Colmenares. Colmenares, like Chávez, was also from Barinas and had roots in Venezuela's plains culture. Colmenares' friends gossiped that she was already pregnant with their first daughter before they were married in 1977. Thereafter, Chávez began to lead a "double life": while feigning disciplined obedience amidst his military superiors and miming political neutrality around his family, Chávez engaged in secret trysts with social democrats, socialists, communists, and other leftists. From 1978 through 1979, Chávez was commander and squad leader of the 414th Apure Braves AMX-30 armored battalion in Maracay. (The unit's anthem, Fatherland Beloved by Venezuelan composer Heriberto Maluenga, the then battalion military band conductor when he