New York, the Bronx, 1968: A promising and popular inner-city high school graduate, Anthony Curtis decides to forego college and enter the Vietnam War as a member of the Marine Corps. Neither his parents nore his girl-friend Juanita are too excited about his choice.
Anthony survives a graphic and arduous three-plus-year stint in the jungle, returning home in 1973, where Juanita has been raising the child he fathered before he shipped out.
But upon his homecoming, he realizes that the "real world" can be just as trying as war. His neighbourhood has been crippled by drugs and crime.
His low-paying job provides little support for his new family and he becomes desperate to make ends meet. Eventually, Anthony falls in his pals from Nam, Kirby, Skip, and Jose, who have teamed with Juanita's sister Delilah a Black Power activist, and Cleon, in a scheme to rob an armored truck taking worn greenbacks ("dead presidents") to a mint to be destroyed.