The storied history of the US Army's elite 10th Mountain Division is presented here in precise detail by Dennis Chapman, a former officer in the division. The reader will first learn of the outfit's 1943 activation, then the dramatic story of their famous WWII Italian campaign. After successfully storming the near-vertical slope of Riva Ridge (thought unclimbable by their German opponents) and then seizing the strategic heights of the Mount Belvedere massif, the men of the 10th Mountain Division battered their way through the Apennine Mountains. Breaking out into the Po Valley, the 10th Mountain Division raced across the lowlands to the foot of the Austrian Alps, slamming the door shut on thousands of retreating Axis troops. The reader will also learn about the heroism of the 10th Mountain Division troops at the Battle of the Black Sea in Mogadishu—the famous story of "Black Hawk Down"—as well as its exploits during the early years of the global war on terror. Unlike most books of its kind, this book goes beyond those famous exploits, bringing together all the threads of the division's history. Chapman also recounts the history of the 10th Mountain Division in its Cold War incarnations at Fort Riley, Kansas, and in Germany. He also tells the story of the 87th Infantry Regiment, the last remaining of the division's three original regiments, and the only element of the division to continue in existence from the division's deactivation in 1958 until its reactivation in 1985.