In 1971, the war in Vietnam still rages. Jason Conley, a recent college graduate, finds himself paying the price for the "free" university education a NROTC scholarship provided and now owes the Navy four years of service. Not wanting to go to war, he devises a scheme to serve on an oceanographic research support vessel in Hawaii, thousands of miles from the battle zone. A brilliant plan, if it works. And it does-at first.

Through a series of events and miscues, some of his own making, Jason is transferred to a new command, a destroyer escort that deploys on a WestPac tour to Vietnam the very day he sets foot aboard. How will he reconcile his feelings about the Vietnam War while at the same time directing a destroyer escort on the gunline supporting US and South Vietnamese troops? How will his personal life be affected by the dictates of the Navy? And more importantly, how does he come out of this alive?