A nameless soul is stranded on an unknown shore, watching the countless soldiers of wars long past go about their nightly activities.

A soldier stationed in Tunisia during World War II reflects on how his perception of death has changed while he buries two of his fellow soldiers.

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 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 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.

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.

To hear his friends and readers tell it, an American war correspondent based in Saigon is losing touch with reality. But to him, the opposite is true. Through studies of the Vietnamese people and fantastical letters to his children, he alternately tries to confront and embrace the world as it truly is.

In Vietnam War-era America, a young boy fills his days playing a “game” in which he reenacts his father’s battlefield death in Vietnam. But fun and games soon put his loved ones in real danger.

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 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.