Set in 1967, the Boys in Company C follows the lives of five Marine inductees from their training in boot camp through a tour of duty in Vietnam that quickly devolves into a hellish nightmare. Disheartened by futile combat, appalled by the corruption of their South Vietnamese ally, and constantly endangered by the incompetence of their own company commander, the young men discover a possible way out of the war. They are told that if they can defeat a rival soccer team they may spend the rest of their tour playing exhibition games safely behind the lines. But, as might be expected, nothing in Vietnam is as simple as it seems.