Johnny's father keeps three locked wooden boxes in the tool shed behind their family's house. In 1974, when Johnny was ten years old, he saw his father open one of the boxes and pull out some photographs to show his Marine Corps buddy. Johnny's father served in the Marine Corps for seventeen years and fought in the Vietnam War before he began his second career at a steel mill. Despite his father's time in service, Johnny's family's house boasts no war memorabilia.

When Johnny was sixteen, he began researching the Vietnam War. He hides the books he reads so his father will not find them. After he has researched for a while, Johnny steals the keys to his father's boxes in the tool shed so that he can explore their contents. He works his way through two of the containers and finds old family photographs, military uniforms, and war memorabilia.

One evening, Johnny's father takes him to a Cardinals game. On the way home, his father turns off the highway to look at a farm that is on fire. The next day, after Johnny's father leaves for work, Johnny sneaks out to the toolshed to open the third and final box. Ashes from the farm fire fall from the sky as Johnny works through the box. He finds newspaper clippings that explain that his father was a prisoner of war for over three years. Johnny finds labeled and dated human teeth in a small paper box.

Johnny's father enters the toolshed and catches Johnny with the open box, and the father and son stare at each other. Johnny's father starts to cry and then walks away. He sits at the edge of the family's garden with his head folded down, and Johnny enters the house. In the four years that Johnny's dad lived after that day, he occasionally tried to talk about his time in service with Johnny despite how hard it was for him.