At the age of nineteen, Don Tate volunteered for duty in the Vietnam War. This is his story - of the trouble-strewn path to manhood in the shadow of his father, a violent petty criminal, surviving horrific war injuries and years of hospitalisation, and struggling to find a place in a society that did not want to recognise his military service for his country and seemed intent on excluding him. Ultimately, it's a story of one man's attempt to reconcile the vagaries of faith and circumstance as they are played out in life, and the love of a woman who stuck by him through thick and thin.