This is the true story of a young Red Army soldier during the Second World War, told in his own words. Recruited into the army aged just seventeen, Sergei Drobyazkos introduction to battle is a violent one: forced to retreat from his home city of Krasnodar after it is set ablaze by German forces. Later, Drobyazko is captured by the Germans and placed in a concentration camp, where prisoners are reduced to eating scavenged rubbish and bathing battle wounds in urine. After a daring escape from the camp, he enters service once more, rising to the rank of sergeant in an infantry regiment. During this time, he witnesses the execution of deserters and the routine ill-treatment of German prisoners of war by vengeful Soviet troops.