Fleeing poverty, heartbreak, and the shadow of his famous ancestor, Davy Crockett, young Wesley Foster hops a freight train, leaving home and family far behind.

His journey of self-discovery takes him far from life in rural Arkansas in the years before World War I. He and his buddies ride the rails of America, having grand adventures before joining the US Army.

As young soldiers, they spend the next three-and-a-half years overseas in the Panama Canal Zone, the Caribbean, the Philippines, and China. After eight years, Wesley returns home to his family that had given him up for dead.

Wesley's next stop is northern France. Following intensive training with the British Empire Forces, he is involved in pitched engagements, sniper duty, and night patrols in No Man's Land. After being mustard gassed, he spends a brief reprieve from the "Mad Line" in Paris. Wesley returns to his unit and is thrown into fierce combat during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. In one battle the carnage is so horrifying, it is called the "Center of Hell."

Join Wesley as he grows up in rural poverty, crisscrosses America in boxcars, engages in secret military operations in America's new territories, and struggles to survive what most thought would be "The War to End All Wars."