Jon Zachery is shanghaied into the Navy in 1959 by his father. At least that's how he sees it. He is fortunate and lands a scholarship to attend college. After he is commissioned, he is assigned to a destroyer. In 1966, Jon's destroyer deploys to the South China Sea and the Tonkin Gulf. Zachery has encounters with North Vietnamese PT boat sailors, Viet Cong soldiers, anti-war protestors, the Navy bureaucracy, and his own conscience.