Korea, June 1, 1950. Captain Ken McCoy’s report on probable North Korean hostilities meets with so much bureaucratic displeasure that not only is it promptly suppressed, but McCoy himself is kicked out of the Corps.

At least two outfits, however, are not impressed by such infighting: the fledgling CIA, which promptly hires McCoy; and the North Koreans, who on June 25th invade across the 38th parallel.

Immediately, veterans scattered throughout military and civilian life are called up, many with only seventy-two hours’ notice. For Fleming Pickering and Pick, his daredevil son, and Ed Banning, George Hart, Jack Stecker, Jake Dillon, Ernie Zimmerman—and for the women who love them—names such as Inchon and Pusan will acquire a new, bloody reality, and Korea will become not only a new battlefield—but their greatest challenge of all…