As World War II sweeps the globe, George Hargrave always thought he'd be a clothing store clerk forever, stuck in his comfortable-if unsatisfying-Iowa life until death or retirement claimed him. But when an unexpected moment of bravery puts George on the outs with the draft board's crooked chairman, George finds his life's predictable course suddenly altered as he becomes a cog in the Army machine. Facing the bloody, near-alien landscape of the front, George struggles to survive while his squad-mates are slaughtered around him in the gloomy confines of Germany's Hrtgen Forest. And yet, amid the kill-or-be-killed struggles, George finds a way to hold on to his humanity and become the man he always wanted to be.