Redemption Ridge

Redemption Ridge: Six miles long, and fourteen hundred feet in altitude at it's highest point.  It was just a wrinkle on the map back at headquarters, but now it stood out in vivid color.  Captain Michael Wilson looked around him, his ears still ringing from the blazing hell of his morning.  The blood-spattered foliage was shredded and scattered across the landscape -- a surrealistic landscape of smoking craters and broken trees.

This wasn't prime real estate, nobody would want it -- but the enemy had it, so Captain Wilson was ordered to take it from them.  They were a bloody pawn in the chess game being played a thousand miles away, at the negotiating tables.  Now, his orders were to hold it.

Mike looked around at his men as they dug in.  They were veterans, now, eighteen hours into their mission and fifty of them were still alive.  Night was coming -- it happens fast in the mountains.  There was a new test coming now, a test of nerve as they waited in the darkness, ears straining for any sound.


The crimson tapestry of dawn dissipated as a morning breeze stirred the mountain mists.  The bleak foothill panorama below repeated itself across the horizon endlessly.  This was an empty land, worthless for farming, and too rugged to settle.  There were a few mountain goats and deer, eagles soaring on the updrafts -- and an enemy column set in array across the valley, ready to begin their attack.

Mike shook his head at the senseless waste of time and manpower -- for what?  For the ego of those stony faces playing poker with his life.  The President had filled the airwaves with promise and threat, and had bolstered the army with praise.  But when it came down to the bottom line, the President and his Generals were nowhere near the hell they unleashed.

Mike was a soldier, however, and had his own principles.  He'd purchased this hill with the blood of his men, and damned if he'd give it up willingly.

With a sobbing sound, two fighter jets screamed down the valley and laid their eggs.  Mike could feel the heat of the napalm, even at this great distance.  The land around them burst forth in agony as the shelling commenced.

A new hell began -- and a new redemption.

Dallas D'Angelo-Gary 03