Set thirty-four years after the events of The Last Detail, this novel brings together Billy Bad-Ass Buddusky, Mule Mulhall, and Larry Meadows to reprise the same journey, but under very different circumstances. Now middle-aged, Meadows seeks out his former captors in their civilian lives to help him bury his Marine son in Arlington National Cemetery. When he learns that the authorities have told him a lie about the circumstances of his son's death in Iraq, he decides, with the help of the two others, to transport him home to Portsmouth.