In 1943, a young soldier named James Jones returned from the Pacific, lightly wounded and psychologically tormented by the horrors of Guadalcanal. When he was well enough to leave the hospital, he went AWOL rather than return to service, and began work on a novel of the World War II experience. Jones's AWOL period was brief, but he returned to the novel at war's end, bringing him to the attention of Maxwell Perkins, the legendary editor of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. Jones would then go on to write From Here to Eternity, the National Book Award-winning novel that catapulted him into the ranks of the literary elite. Now, for the first time, Jones's earliest writings are presented here, as a collection of stories about man and war, a testament to the great artist he was about to become.