<B>In <I>Black Hawk Down,</I> the fight went on for a day. In <I>We Were Soldiers Once & Young,</I> the fighting lasted three days. In <I>The Village,</I> one Marine squad fought for 495 days -- half of them died.</B> <P> Few American battles have been so extended, savage and personal. A handful of Americans volunteered to live among six thousand Vietnamese, training farmers to defend their village. Such "Combined Action Platoons" (CAPs) are now a lost footnote about how the war could have been fought; only the villagers remain to bear witness. This is the story of fifteen resolute young Americans matched against two hundred Viet Cong; how a CAP lived, fought and died. And why the villagers remember them to this day.