Standing in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on a bitter winter day, Jake Adams remembers the young lieutenant who went off to war in the same spirit as generations of Adams men before him. He thought he was prepared for what he would face in Vietnam, but instead found that he had to endure an education in combat that would be paid for in blood. As he learned how to survive he approached the moment that would demand all of his courage and faith, when he and his men confronted a faceless enemy in the dreaded Ashau Valley.
On this brutality cold day in Washington, D.C., the black stone inscribed with names becomes a mirror reflecting the unaknowledged past for Jake Adams, successful businessman, husband, father once a warrior in Vietnam. As he stares at the names now, etched on the black wall, he remembers how all of his old beliefs withered in Vietnams heat and dust, how his trust in those who commanded him disintegrated in its rotting humidity and endless confusion, and how a force greater than the power of any army decided who would live and who would die.