Roger Lincoln Shinn is an esteemed professor of social ethics at a prestigious New York institution. Known only to his wife, he had faced the unspeakable as a combat infantryman in the Second World War. But two decades later during the Vietnam War, Shinn reveals to stunned students his astounding story as a soldier and prisoner of war, and those of a defiant captain in his outfit who ruptures the boundaries of conventional warfare. On a converted ocean liner en route to fight the Nazi army in Europe, the proper young Shinn meets John William Hall, a rough-hewn Southern rifle champion rebelling against the family bloodline. Hall left the dark rage of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl for the vortex of world war, and the two captain’s destinies intertwine at the ferocious Battle of the Bulge. This sweeping narrative pivots on battlefield courage, family histories, inspired women, social prejudice, tragic miscalculations, and the centrality of love. Together they influence life and death—and the trajectory of two uncompromising soldiers caught in humankind's darkest venture. A work of fiction based on true accounts, Rare Encounter will grip readers intrigued by vivid human stories formed from inside monumental events.