Captain Sad Sam Gerdine is marking time at Camp Pendleton in the summer of 1950. He's finally been given command of the rifle company he worked for with such focus that he lost both his wife and the child he loves. It's not much of a command in the diminished post-World War II Marine Corps, but he's doing his best with an outfit that includes rascals, rejects, and-fortunately-a solid cadre of anxious young officers and savvy, combat-hardened senior NCOs.

And then-in the words of Elmore Bates, his competent and colorfully profane Company Gunnery Sergeant-the "defecation strikes the oscillation." War in Korea and the Marines will be the allied fire brigade against a North Korean juggernaut rolling across the Land of the Morning Calm.

In short order, mostly by ignoring rules and regulations, Captain Gerdine proceeds to make Able Company, 5th Marines a combat-ready outfit prepared to face the rigors of war in Korea. From the Pusan Perimeter to the audacious landing at Inchon and on into the frigid, intense combat at the Chosin Reservoir, Sad Sam's Marines mold and meld into a shining example of how U.S. Marines get the job done despite formidable odds.