Shy, naïve nineteen year-old Griffin returns one night from the insurance office where he works to his parent's home in the suburbs where he still lives, to discover that he has been drafted. Against the odds, he survives induction into the army where fierce sergeants set about transforming him into their version of a man-without a great deal of success. But he learns what he needs to know pretty quickly once they land him as a combat soldier in the Vietnam war. He soon learns that the Vietcong are only the nominal enemy-his real foes are the officers, the army and most of all the Americans. Faced with the worst horrors of human conflict, Griffin transforms into the most fundamental of humans-hunter-killer-the quintessential example of the most dangerous predatory animal ever to walk this planet. Horrified by what he has become, he and the men with whom he has shared these horrors strike back against their commanders. But by then, their most dangerous enemy has become themselves.