Second Lieutenant Sam, USMC, traces his thirteen month tour in dreams and flashbacks trying to define the young man who left on a January Viet Nam bound air plane, and in so doing realizes that that young man never returned. The lights that once danced in his eyes are out. Home,the memory of which he clung to throughout his tour has turned out to be a frightening place full of booby traps that if he is not careful will bring his fragile world crashing down around him. Each operation, each patrol, each step each day ticked off the calendar bring him closer to home and farther away from himself