At Baraque de Fraiture, a handful of American soldiers planted themselves on a frozen crossroads the Germans had to have. Major Arthur C. Parker III and the battered men of the 589th Field Artillery Battalion knew exactly what was at stake. Those roads led west toward Manhay, Hotton, and the Meuse. Parker scraped together every man and gun he could find, dug in, and told the Germans in the only language they understood: if you want this crossroads, come and take it.

The Germans finally took Parker’s Crossroads, but those American soldiers robbed them of something more precious than ground: time. For several critical days, a scratch force held up a much larger German formation while our defenses hardened farther west. That’s how wars are won. You don’t always have to hold the ground. Sometimes you make the enemy fight for it, bleed for it, waste his strength taking it—and when he finally gets there, he’s too damn late.