Courage and cowardice are the themes of this Vietnam novel. Set in 1967–1968, The story tells of Marine Capt. MacHugh Clare and the men of his infantry company as they fight Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers in the jungles and cities of South Vietnam. Clare is a calm, cool battlefield leader who claims he has never been afraid, but when an inexperienced navy chaplain joins his unit on a dangerous search and destroy mission, Clare begins to regard his leadership in a different way. Lt. Paul Adrano, who has never seen combat, thinks he is prepared for the horrors of the modern battlefield, but he soon questions his vows and his worth as a priest and as a man. Watching both men carefully is Clare's senior enlisted man, Gunnery Sergeant Hitchcock, a crusty, battle-hardened Marine who will come to love one man and hate the other. As Clare, Adrano, Hitchcock and the Marines fight and die in Vietnam, Clare's wife, Sarah, and other Marine wives wonder and worry back home, fighting their own battles against loneliness, boredom, uncertainty and the dread of a government-issue telegram. Most of the men think they are fearless; only a few know the truth about themselves.
