The novel is a starkly realistic story of army life in the calm before the outbreak of World War II. Set in 1941 in Hawaii, the narrative follows several soldiers stationed at Schofield Barracks in the months leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The story primarily focuses on Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, a gifted bugler and former boxer who refuses to fight on the company's boxing team after blinding a man in the ring, and First Sergeant Milton Warden, who is having an affair with the commanding officer's wife, Karen Holmes. Jones explores the intense, often brutal, codes of conduct and masculinity within the military institution, depicting the lives of soldiers who are caught between the demands of the system and their own personal desires, failures, and search for meaning. It is a powerful and unflinching portrayal of the human spirit under the duress of a rigid and unforgiving hierarchy.
