This war drama (which prefigures the later "Full Metal Jacket") follows the lives of five young Marine inductees from their training in boot camp in 1967 through a
tour in Vietnam in 1968 that quickly devolves into a hellish nightmare. Disheartened by futile combat| appalled by the corruption of their South Vietnamese ally| and
constantly endangered by the incompetence of their own company commander| the young men find a possible way out of the war. They are told that if they can defeat a
rival soccer team| they can spend the rest of their tour playing exhibition games behind the lines. But as they might have predicted| nothing in Vietnam is as simple
as it seems.