Lieutenant Lieutenant Wallace W. "Sparky" Watts, a young man from an affluent family in Milwaukee, joins the Navy after graduating from Princeton University. Hoping to have a "meaningful life experience," he is thrilled to be stationed overseas, as he hopes to escape the country club lifestyle in which he was raised. Upon his arrival, he meets Sachiko, a young Japanese woman working as a waitress in the Officers' Club, and begins a passionate romance. When Sparky meets Captain Anderson's wife Julia, however, he comes face to face with the culture he was trying to escape. Sparky, determined to break away from his parents' all-American values, confesses to her that he is "trying to get away from all that." Julia learns of Sparky's romance and feels it's her duty to "bring him back into the fold." Julia places obstacles between Sparky and Sachiko, which actually deepen Sparky's commitment to follow through. While he is falling in love with this young Japanese woman, he finds that it is not so easy to escape the allure of American culture. Describing Sparky's journey, Gurney says, "At the beginning, it's all about experiencing new things. And at the end, it's about coming home and the pull of home -- the inevitability of that pull."