Rockie has a darkness about him, and is not given to making friends. When the aspiring jazz drummer is drafted, he goes to the army with no sense of greater mission other than perhaps bringing back some Nazi souvenirs. He enters the war with a thrill-seeking, daredevil attitude and though initially shocked by the incredible violence and horror he encounters, he quickly develops a grim attitude in which “killing becomes almost like a sport” and items stripped from the bodies of the dead are “souvenirs” to be sought after and kept. But as he battles his way across Europe and into the heart of Hitler’s Third Reich, Rockie gradually finds himself caught up in an internal battle in which he must confront his own young ideas of humanity and righteousness.