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Recent high school graduate Rick Ward, undecided about his future and eager to escape his unhappy home life, joins the army and experiences the horrors of the war in Vietnam.

When Rudi is drafted by the US Marine Corps, no one expects him to succeed.

Best friends Morris, Rudi, Ivan, and Beck, having been either drafted or enlisted in the military during the Vietnam War, pledge they will come home together, and Morris, a sailor on the USS "Boston," relies on that promise to stay strong while his courage and resolve are tested under attack.

In What It Is Like to Go to War, Marlantes takes a deeply personal and candid look at the experience and ordeal of combat, critically examining how we might better prepare our young soldiers for war.

Rudi is a newly drafted United States Marine in Vietnam, and he likes being part of a squad--but the way some of his fellow soldiers behave toward their officers, the Vietnamese, and the war itself, is starting to trouble him.

Morris, Rudi, Ivan, and Beck were best friends at home and in Vietnam, but now Rudi has been killed in action, and the remaining three are the only ones who know the truth about their friend's death--and the knowledge threatens to tear them apart.

"U.S. soldiers and their allies fighting in the Vietnam War faced violence on and off the battlefield and could never be sure who was friendly and who was an enemy.

Relates the story of what a marine would have endured during the Vietnam War.