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 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.

During the Second World War, a woman falls in love with a Merchant Marine and agrees to marry him just before he is deployed - but their whirlwind love story is fated to have a tragic end.

Upon hearing about an upcoming wedding, a former American soldier reminisces about the time he met a young girl who gave him the recourse to survive the war.

A soldier stumbles to the doorstep of a friend in Paris after World War II, begging to tell the story of his lost comrade to anyone who will listen.

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.

When a World War II soldier returns home to San Francisco, memories of a late friend keep him from enjoying the normalcy of civilian life.

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.

The daughter of draft-defying anarchists in the post-World War II era marries a man whose father died in the war. As their differing pasts lead to resentment in the present, she engages in deception and affairs as a means of finding freedom from his presence.

During his leave, an American World War II soldier visits the family of one of his fellow British soldiers. While he expects a warm and doting environment, he is instead greeted by a circumspectly cold group of British people.