A current university professor and former soldier sits serenely in his office until two students, who are actually his former army colleagues, enter for essay help. The three boys discuss a possible essay topic about a real attack that involved of the army lieutenants of their time.

A group of Marines recall their horrifying memories of fighting on the Pacific front of World War II, while a journalist attempts to glorify their experiences for his readers.

Fifteen members of the United States Marines tell stories about their time serving in Europe during World War I.

After being offered a 100,000 pound advance to write a book on the twentieth century, a historian/writer struggling with depression takes to London to begin this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

In England during World War II, a literary critic turned war correspondent finds himself face to face with his own mortality on an air raid mission.

A Confederate officer begrudgingly fights in the American Civil War until his disastrous last battle helps seal the fate of the war for good. After the war, he constantly repents for his critical mistakes until, decades later, he comes to a shocking revelation about the fateful battle.

A man attempting to write a book on the Iraq war has flashbacks of violence from his time with a group of marines he accompanied as a journalist. The book centers around a man who is a stand-in for himself, who later tells his stories to an Israeli business man who is actually an intelligence agent in a bar in Frankfurt.

A retired army officer immerses himself in creating an honorary parade for the world war that ended over a decade prior. In his obsessions with recognizing the past, his present relationship with his family becomes strained.

In World War I era Britain, an Oxford University dean tells his colleague about the arm of war that stretched to his small English town and changed the life of the community stonemason. When the stonemason shares his idea for bringing down German planes, he doesn't expect to be so devastated by the death he causes.

A thirteen year old boy's grandfather tells his harrowing wartime story once again--this time in the darkness of his closet.