In the war-torn Philippines, two soldiers scout the landscape. Under ordinary circumstances they might be friends, but in the hostile environment of World War II, they are mortal enemies. Sergeant Leal Baldwin writes sonnets. Lieutenant Tadashi Abukara prefers haiku. Despite months of combat, Leo and Tadashi discover the humanity of their enemy and the questionable moral acts committed by their supposed comrades, and they begin to ask themselves why they are here at all. When they at last meet in the jungles of Luzon, only one will survive, but their poetry will live forever.