The landing craft felt so claustrophobic packed full of soldiers, each of them preparing for what was about to come. Louis tightly gripped his rifle and checked his equipment for what felt like the hundredth time that day. From over the walls of the landing craft, Louis could see the land that they were fast approaching.

That was their land. Their home. Their France.

But not his.

Louis had no memory of it. His father had been a soldier in the Weltkrieg. When the communard dogs had risen up, his father fought against them along with all the "true men of France" as his father put it. But they were too weak and the Syndicalist backstabbers were too strong. It had cost them the Weltkrieg and most of their empire… and his mother. A civilian casualty to the damn Syndicalists his father had told him growing up.

His father had fled with many other loyalists to North Africa, taking with him his two sons, his older brother Charles and him. Neither of them were even out of diapers at the time.

His father stayed in the army. When Charles and Louis each came of age, they joined too. It was their duty, it's what they had been told their whole lives by their teachers, the government, the radio, their father, everything. It was their purpose to fight for the true France.

Louis enjoyed army life well enough, it suited him. Charles was the true warrior of the two of them, though. He towered over Louis along with most other people. He was also smart and devoted enough to be recommended for officer training.

Charles and Louis rarely saw eye to eyes and the same went for their father and Louis. Louis's home was Algiers with it's blazing heat, and the unending Sahara. That was his France. Charles and their father disagreed, they hated everything about Africa, the heat, the natives, and the humiliation of exile.

His father died of fever in 1937. He hadn't died quietly or peacefully. He had fought to the end, raging and howling to his last breath, begging his sons to retake their rightful home. His final wish was to be buried in "True French soil". Another one of so many loyal sons who would never see their fatherland again.

Charles died fighting to put down the Taureg rebellion. Louis had been told it was a quick and painless death, a bullet to the head. He hoped that was true.

Now here he stood in a landing craft, about to fight and possibly die for a land he didn't care about.

It was not his France. But it was his father's France. It was Charles's France. It was their France, and he would take it back for them.

They would be able to rest eternal in their France's soil.

The beach was getting closer now as the landing craft sailed at full speed toward it.

No speeches were given by their officers. No one shook in fear. No one looked back.

They would take it back.

The boat hit solid ground, the ramp lowered, and Louis took his first steps on their France's soil as they charged toward the Communard enemy.