Refusing to join the company boxing team gets Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift), a soldier in Sgt. Milton Warden’s (Burt Lancaster) outfit, ostracized by his fellow soldiers save one, Pvt. Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra). While Prewitt falls in love with prostitute Alma Lorene (Donna Reed), and Warden carries on an affair with Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr), the wife of their company commander, Maggio goes AWOL and is brutally beaten before dying in Prewitt’s arms. In retaliation, Prewitt angrily kills the man responsible for Maggio’s death and then finds sanctuary in Lorene’s arms — until Pearl Harbor is bombed and he’s killed while trying to rejoin Warden and their company to defend the islands.