The Battle of Hope was the first battle in the campaign to reclaim the United States from the zombies. It was fought seven years after the disastrous Battle of Yonkers. The entire battle was an experiment to test the effectiveness of the new model army that had been trained in the years since zombies became the dominant life form on the planet outside of the Safe Zones. Thus, the location of Hope, New Mexico had no strategic value: the entire point was picking a town named "Hope" for the battle that would take the fight to the zombies. The entire operational plan was to march a large army group beyond the Rocky Mountains defensive line, engage and destroy a disproportionately high number of zombies, then retreat back after proving that the new tactics worked.