The year is 1968 and the Vietnam War is reaching its nadir. Thomas Bishop, like so many other young men of this generation, faces terrible decisions forced on him by foreign policy of the American government. Honor bound to defend America from communism, Thomas trains to become a Marine Corps pilot to avoid a walking tour in the jungles of Vietnam.
Tran Thien Don is a simple peasant boy thrust into the American War following a violent and life changing encounter with soldiers from Saigon. The struggle to preserve and maintain Vietnamese culture through a history of invasion from China, Japan, France, and now the inexplicable devastation from America, has ignited a fire in Don to fight for his country's unification, while seeking the opportunity for revenge on his personal enemies.
Oliver Lacey is a young black man who is an accidental Marine inductee facing racism in the ranks in Vietnam, missing a civil rights movement at home, and experiencing his own awakening about his place in the world.
On the streets of the United States and in universities around the world the war rages. Few escape its reality as the nightly news sends images from Vietnam into homes during dinner. This tragic and unrelenting suppertime carnage sparks a collective awakening and a revolution of social change is born.