When overweight thirteen-year-old Elvin Bishop is sent to camp at St. Paul's Seminary Retreat Center, he and his two best friends are forced to try out various sports in order to find out where they belong.

Twelve-year-old Davey is the man of the household, taking care of his mother and older sister as best he can and avoiding them when they're either too mean or too sad.

When the draft board calls on the eve of World War II, Roman leaves behind a career in minor-league baseball to join the army, and finds himself driving a tank in the North African campaign.

Fergus Frew thought he knew what to expect when he signed up with the Navy's demolitions team. But as the Korean War rages on, Fergus and his fellow divers -- a.k.a. "frogmen" -- are tasked with more than just scouting mudflats. Soon they're planting mines. And sabotaging tunnels, bridges... and even fishing nets. Scariest of all, it falls to Fergus to discover where the enemy has placed their mines, a job as painstaking as it is dangerous.

Rudi is a newly drafted United States Marine in Vietnam, and he likes being part of a squad--but the way some of his fellow soldiers behave toward their officers, the Vietnamese, and the war itself, is starting to trouble him.

After America is drawn into World War II, Hank McCallum finds himself on the USS Yorktown, an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, separated from his brother Theo, in constant danger from torpedoes, and just learning about the prejudice and segregation that plague his new friend from Tonga, Bradford.

Some things are worth fighting for. Of all his friends, Ivan is the only one looking forward to war. That's because Ivan has never backed down from a fight--especially when it comes to fighting for what's right. Now, as war erupts in Vietnam, Ivan wants nothing more than to fight for his country, just as his father did in World War II. But Vietnam is not the war he was expecting. Now, for the first time, Ivan is forced to question what he's really...

"The First Special Service Force is an elite commando unit composed of American and Canadian troops. From the start, the Force is intended to go where other soldiers won't. The call for volunteers specifically singles out lumberjacks, hunters, prospectors, and game wardens as ideal candidates. And their training is anything but basic, including intense lessons in parachuting, hand-to-hand combat, skiing, rock climbing, and adaptation to cold climates....

Oliver, known as "O", and his suddenly ex-girlfriend Junie are are known for telling little lies, but one of Junie's lies about not winning the lottery could get her into trouble with a local mob boss.

After their father dies of boxing injuries, George is determined to prevent his younger brother, who sees boxing as his legacy, from pursuing a career in the sport.