The game puts the player in the role of Pvt. Thomas Conlin, a U.S. Marine in the Pacific Theater of Operations in World War II. The game opens up on Conlin, about to land on Tarawa in a landing craft. His voice-over reminisces about how much of a journey it was to arrive there, commenting on the friends he's lost, the untrained quality of the new-recruits ("three week wonders", he calls them) and the futility of taking this small stretch of land from the Japanese.

The game puts the player in the role of Pvt. Thomas Conlin, a U.S. Marine in the Pacific Theater of Operations in World War II. The game opens up on Conlin, about to land on Tarawa in a landing craft. His voice-over reminisces about how much of a journey it was to arrive there, commenting on the friends he's lost, the untrained quality of the new-recruits ("three week wonders", he calls them) and the futility of taking this small stretch of land from the Japanese.