Lieutenant Culver is a US Marine reserve called up due to the Korean War. Having survived the horrors of WW2 he struggles with being back in the military life and this is compounded when he is ordered to go on a thirty six mile march.

This is a typical American novel; beautifully written almost poetic, terse and masculine writing and a sparsely written plot. It is a very interesting look at war, after the major conflict how people cope with the continuing horror and monotony of military life. Stryon explores two coping mechanisms through Culvert and Mannix and how men who grew up in a conformist world are finally being to rebel.



"It had all come much too soon and Culver had felt weirdly as if he had fallen asleep in some barracks in 1945 and had awakened in a half-dozen years or so to find that the intervening freedom, growth and serenity had been only a glorious if somewhat prolonged dream."

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