Film sleduje bouřlivý život spisovatele a vojáka Siegfrieda Sassoona, který přežil hrůzy první světové války a dostal vyznamenání za statečnost.
Ken, a WWII GI, returns home after he's paralyzed in battle. Residing in the paraplegic ward of a veteran's hospital and embittered by his condition, he refuses to see his fiancée and sinks into a solitary world of hatred and hostility. Head physician, Dr. Brock cajoles the withdrawn Ken into the life of the ward, where fellow patients Norm, Leo and Angel begin to pull him out of his spiritual dilemma.
In 1911, a willful and determined man from peasant stock named Charles Saganne enlists in the military and is assigned to the Sahara Desert under the aristocratic Colonel Dubreuilh.
In 1939, Sakura Nishi is a young army nurse who is sent to the field hospitals in China during the Sino-Japanese war. She has to assist the surgeon Dr. Okabe with an incredible number of amputations. In the crowded wards, she gives sympathy to some of the soldiers, including sexually servicing one who has lost both arms and has no hope of returning home. She falls in love with Dr. Okabe, and follows him to the front, even though he is impotent from his morphine addiction
When he's discharged from a military hospital, ex-GI Bob Corey goes on a search for his army buddy Steve Connolly. A reformed crook, Connolly is on the lam from a trumped-up murder rap, and Corey hopes to clear his pal. Tagging along is Army nurse Julie Benson, who has fallen for Corey.
The last days of the Great Patriotic War take place in a military hospital.
A short animated War Office commissioned health education film, showing the fate of each of the 6 jungle soldiers.