Skiing was Jack Franklin's passion, so when the Army came recruiting for the newly formed Ski Troopers he was all in. Training at high altitudes in the Rocky Mountains' Army camp at Camp Hale in Colorado was brutal, but the twelve thousand soldiers who trained there evolved into an elite corps, the Tenth Mountain Division, ready and eager to take on Hitler's best in the Italian Alps. Along the way, Jack formed a long-distance relationship with the woman who recruited him but her East Coast socialite background was as opposite his West Coast blue-collar life as it could possibly be. With him facing impending battle against Nazi Germans in the Alps, and her going overseas with the Red Cross, there was nothing for them to do but hope and pray they would both survive. There's only one way to fight a war: sempre avanti always forward.