Both cavalrymen saw the Guard helicopter suddenly lurch up as if it were trying to climb before pitching over to one side and spinning about. For a moment Kessler thought she had failed. She thought the Guardsmen were coming about to engage. But then it dawned upon her that the Apache she had just finished hammering was in its death throes. In silence the Army aviator watched Sarson’s and Peters’s crippled Apache end its last flight by slamming up against the side of the canyon with a force Kessler imagined that she could feel. Neither she nor her pilot said a word or let out a cheer as the nineteen 2.75mm rockets and two Hell Fire missiles stored on the side of the Guard helicopter tore the stricken aircraft apart. Even before the last smoldering bit of debris floated down onto the cold wet ground below, Kessler ordered her pilot to turn away and head back to where they belonged. There was, in the end, no victory to savor, no joy in accomplishing something that most aviators will only be able to dream of.

SOUTH OF HAMMETT, IDAHO 0345, NOVEMBER 11

As the tracks of his tank found level ground and gave Major Randy Medway his first unobstructed view of the high ground his battalion had been tasked to secure, he felt no great joy either. What relief there was in having survived the dash across Deadman’s Flats was tempered by the knowledge that the cost of that accomplishment had been heavy. Captain Martin Aguilar’s company alone had lost four of the eleven vehicles that he had led down off Black Mesa. Even worse for Medway was the fact that one of the derelicts they had left in the wake of their advance belonged to his battalion commander.

Though the old man was alive, he was unable to exercise command and control of the task force. That left tactical command in Medway’s hands. The task force XO back at the command post on Black Mesa was in no position to command from there. And the time it would take him to cross over to where the task force was even if he had a combat vehicle with which to make the trip was prohibitive. So this left the junior major in command of Task Force 3-68 Armor as it began the next phase of the battle of Glenns Ferry.