This book tells the story of one family's experience during World War II. The story is woven around the letters of Jake and Jean, which were written during the four years from 1942 to 1945 when Jake was serving in the US Marines. During the first two years, Jake and Jean were looking forward to marriage. In the middle of Jake's four years in the Marines, Jake and Jean got married. Near the end of the four years, while Jake was 7,000 miles away, on his way to Okinawa, the last great battle of the war, Jean gave birth to their first child, a son, Johnnie.This is not the story just of Jake and Jean but also of other members of their families, both those left behind on the home front and those who served in other theaters of the war. How did the members of these two families remain calm in the midst of the swirl of emotions caused by the war? The letters never directly mention the horrors of war that surrounded the deployed soldiers. The letters all attempt to carry on ordinary daily life in a world that had gone mad.