Summer 1950: the atomic euphoria of America's WW2 victory still lingers; no man who has joined its postwar military thinks he'll ever have to fight. The complacent American ground forces are ill equipped, badly trained, poorly led, and painfully unaware of just how combat ineffective they've become. That ineffectiveness becomes shockingly clear when they're quickly overwhelmed by the North Korean People's Army as it swarms across the 38th parallel to invade South Korea.American units and their equally weak South Korean allies are forced into a headlong retreat that promises to end only after they've been pushed off the Korean peninsula and into the sea. It will take hardened WW2 veterans - proven, combat-effective leaders like infantrymen Jock Miles and "Top" Patchett, tanker Sean Moon, and his brother, fighter pilot Tommy Moon - to stem the rout and turn back the North Korean red wave.