When First Lieutenant Hugh Jones, an American Infantry officer, and Captain Debbie Stittsworth, an Army nurse, meet in Vietnam, the mortar rounds and bullets are flying. Wishing only to do his job in Vietnam and go home, Jones finds himself in love with the spunky nurse. Her death, at the hands of the enemy, drives him to the verge of insanity and beyond. Ma Qui, the phantom, is born seeking revenge on those who took his love from him. His enemy tries to kill him on the battlefield and follows him home to America. He questions if a man can move on from loss and survive the horrors of war. Other women in his life: Chantell, a Viet Cong soldier, Margaret, a librarian in the Montana Historical Library, Doctor Francine Harder, an Army Psychiatrist and Mrs. Ethel Kimble, a World War II widow, seek to bring him peace even as he saves their lives. Along the way: he leads men in desperate battles, rages in the jungles of Vietnam as the feared American soldier, Ma Qui, saves several peoples lives, including that of President Richard Nixon, excels at the first Army Ranger School for General Creighton Abrams new Ranger Battalion, finds himself leading the life of a spy in North Vietnam and is himself buffeted by the storms of living as he thinks deep thoughts about his life, love and loss. But it isn't until the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that Jones finds the peace he has sought for a decade. He finally reconciles with his violent past when he returns to Vietnam, twenty years after his first trip to the embattled nation.