In New York, Alvin Sanders is a small-time thief who's just been hauled in for stealing a bunch of prawns (shrimp) from a local restaurant. He ends up in a cell with John Jaster, one half of a high-tech criminal team that's just stolen $42,000,000 worth of gold from the Federal Reserve. Realizing that he could die at any moment from his worsening heart condition, Jaster tells Alvin to relay a cryptic message to his wife about the whereabouts of the hidden gold. Alvin doesn't know exactly what the message means, and Edgar Clenteen, the U.S. Treasury investigator working the case, hopes it will lead to the gold or Jaster's partner Bristol, but it does neither. Eighteen months later, Jaster is dead, and both Clenteen and Bristol are still looking for that gold. Clenteen decides to secretly plant a tracking device in Alvin's jaw, release him from prison, and then let the word out that he knows where the gold is hidden...

In World War II, the outcome of the battle of Guadalcanal will strongly influence the Japanese's advance into the pacific. A group of young soldiers is brought in as a relief for the battle-weary Marine units. The exhausting fight for a key-positioned airfield that allows control over a 1000-mile radius puts the men of the Army Rifle company C-for-Charlie through hell. The horrors of war forms the soldiers into a tight-knit group, their emotions develop into bonds of love and even family. The reasons for this war get further away as the world for the men gets smaller and smaller until their fighting is for mere survival and the life of the other men with them.