America is at war in Viet Nam. Tom Betz drops out of college and is drifting about northern New Jersey, doing drugs, getting into trouble, when he receives his draft notice. Tom decides to enlist in the Air Force. Eventually, after spending some months in Texas, Tom finds himself at the Army Language School, in Monterey, California, where he is taught Arabic at the hands of an Iraqi ex-patriot. Tom is then sent to Winter Survival School. What happens to him after he finishes Survival School turns Tom into a latter day Huck Finn whose observations on life in uniform, and life in general, fuel this peripatetic, unpredictable and humorous road novel.