Right after VJ Day, two United States Marine Corps buddies, corporal Bill Tabeshaw (Mitchum) and private first class Cliff Harper (Madison), are among a group selected to return immediately to civilian life. Bill, a former cowboy, has a cranioplasty implanted in his head, a "souvenir" of Battle of Iwo Jima, but has won $2,100 gambling and plans to buy a small cattle ranch in New Mexico. Former college student Cliff is physically uninjured but harbors deep resentments about losing nearly four years of his life because he enlisted right after Attack on Pearl Harbor.