Three young men from very different walks of life—Jerry Miles, a nightclub MC; Mike Strager, a truck driver; and Bob Prescott, the heir to a wealthy family—receive their draft notices on the same day. They report for duty, are measured, and tested for aptitude, and it’s Bob who scores highest, earning him the temporary duty of supervising the others during the bus ride to boot camp. His uniform bears mud from a passing car driven by the cute Peggy Linden, a detail that foreshadows the social mix and chaos to come.
On the ride, Jerry Miles and the slower Mike Strager somehow get pushed off the bus and are left behind, creating an early test of camaraderie among the trio. When the group finally reaches the training camp, Bob’s dream of officer training begins to crumble the moment he meets the colonel, who happens to be Bob’s commanding officer as well as his uncle. The colonel’s sharp rebuke focuses on the loss of two men on the trip and the dishonor of a dirty uniform, setting a tense tone for what follows.
The recruits are granted a six-hour pass, and Peggy Linden extends an invitation for her to host a turkey dinner at the Linden house, where she and five of her friends welcome the newcomers for a lively, if distraction-filled evening. The evening takes an unexpected turn when Dr. Potts is summoned to tend to Hilda, the Lindens’ cook, who is diagnosed with scarlet fever. The doctor orders a quarantine of the house for two weeks, altering the mood from celebration to tension and forcing the men to reckon with the realities of wartime interruptions.
Bob calls the base to relay the news, and Sgt. Burke, his platoon leader, arrives to assess the situation. He, too, becomes quarantined, yet his instinct for discipline doesn’t fade; he insists on carrying out training drills inside the confines of the house, pushing the men to stay sharp despite the restrictions. A few days later, the doctor returns to re-examine Hilda and admits the misdiagnosis, lifting the quarantine. The recruits are allowed to return to base, but their reentry is immediately followed by a grueling thirty-day field exercise.
Burke orders Bob, Mike, and Jerry to march twelve miles to their field base, but the trio decides to cut a corner by hitching a ride with a convoy. Unbeknownst to them, the convoy heads toward San Francisco, and after a nap they awaken to orders that pull them into a larger, overseas deployment. The three men become AWOL on an ocean-bound freighter, then improvise a plan to swing back to the docks using the ship’s cargo nets. The net jams, sending them into the water, but their rescue comes with a twist of fate: they recover a whole dispatches briefcase that had fallen overboard.
The men are regarded as heroes for recovering the dispatches, yet their ocean ordeal lands them in the hospital. There, news arrives that General Ames is coming to personally thank them, a moment that heightens the stakes: if the general discovers they were AWOL, Bob’s chances of officer training could vanish. To avoid this, they attempt to slip away before the general arrives, but the nurses spot them and the MPs move in. They’re captured and returned to their unit.
To mask their AWOL, Jerry suggests telling the truth about getting lost during the march, but Peggy helps by driving them to a secluded ravine. There, they’re found by Burke and brought before the colonel, who orders the three men jailed. When their company finally ships out, Jerry and Mike are released to follow Burke, while Bob wrestles with the lieutenant’s dilemma after a letter from General Ames explains their courageous actions. The colonel forgives Bob, and in a choice that defines his path, Bob abandons his ambition for officer training to stay with his friends as they head overseas to join the war effort.
