It was just one small hilltop in a small, unnamed war in the late 1990s, but it would send out ripples that are still felt worldwide today. The hill, in Lebanon, was called the Pumpkin; "flowers" was the military code word for casualties. The young Israeli soldiers charged with holding this remote outpost would be changed forever, and the experience would wound the country in ways large and small, as well as foreshadow the unwinnable conflicts the United States would soon confront in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.
