The book is an account of a young man whose mother died in Havana in 1956 and then raised by his father in the pre-revolution turbulence of the time. Fleeing communism, they arrived in Texas in May 1960, where the author comes of age. He soon assimilates into America and graduates from high school. Lacking academic direction, he joins the US Navy and falls in love with the rigors, discipline, and culture of military life. After an eight-year enlistment, he earned a commission in the US Army as an Infantry Officer and retired forty-one years later. At his father's deathbed, the father asked him to pen the memoirs he kept of his long military career, as well as those he kept of his own life in Havana and those of his father, a diplomat for the Republic of Cuba for 36 years. The book thematically chronicles the written narratives of the three men and ends in present-day America.