Onishiwan, 1945

Too old for the draft, Gil Rossiter spends his days in a basement of a Seattle newspaper typesetting articles about the war. His wife, a Japanese American, is incarcerated with her family in a Wyoming internment camp, her ethnicity the reason for his lack of advancement to reporter.

Meanwhile, Ray Ingersoll has been sent back Stateside for sentencing, after shooting Japanese prisoners on Iwo Jima. Because he has an otherwise exemplary record, the authorities decide to assign him guard duty ...