O.S. Smyslov's new book is an attempt to look through the prism of history during the Great Patriotic War and look at its everyday truth. It is also everyday because it contains exactly the same situations and manifests exactly the same human qualities and emotions as in peaceful life. There are twelve stories in the book, but each of them is essentially documentary. There are no fictional characters in these stories, and all facts are based on eyewitness accounts and documents. Each story is a story about difficult military years, about the fate of military personnel. Among the heroes of the book are soldiers and officers, fighter aces, political workers and generals.