In 1990, when Saddam Hussein's military force invades Kuwait, millions of Americans hear the call to surrender loved ones to bloody combat and almost certain death in the Arabian desert. In Saverne, a Texas town near the U.S. border with Mexico, social worker Grace Faith Hernandez has a son in the Infantry and a fiance working in Kuwait, now MIA-perhaps taken captive to Baghdad-or dead. Homeless former head librarian Katie Hand has a son/grandson, one of the first Air Force E-15 pilots to arrive in Oman. Rancher Red, Hubba-Hubba Clay, has a son, somewhat estranged from him, a career Marine already in Al Jubal with the California desert-trained 7th MEB. Together they wait for war.