This is the story of an American POW, taken from his own memories, his fellow POWs` recollections, and a secret diary that he kept in the margins of his Bible. It is a gut-wrenching tale of how these infantrymen kept hope alive through terror, loneliness, filth, and the shattering of their pride.

Higgins was a Browning Automatic rifleman in an infantry company overrun by a battle-hardened SS Wafen German division. With its sub-zero temperatures, winter in the Alsace Mountains of France was unbearable. After five days of fighting, the company would find itself surrounded, without a way out.

Once captured, Higgins would be harassed, interrogated, and forced to walk for three days through the icy terrain to a 10-by-33-foot cattle car that would take him and 80 other POWs to the infamous Stalag IXB.