Some stories didn't make it into the history books…
YANK! begins with a young man in present-day San Francisco who finds an old diary in a junk shop...
Through the journal we learn the story of Stu, a scared Midwestern kid who gets drafted in 1943, and who – like most guys – spends Basic Training wrestling with fears of whether he “has what it takes” to make it in the Army. But unlike most guys, Stu also falls in love with a fellow Private, a handsome All-American guy named Mitch...
A friendship between Stu and Mitch leads to an awkward kiss on a train… after which a terrified Stu (scared of his feelings for Mitch, scared he’s not “man enough to fight on the front”) meets Artie – an unapologetically queer reporter for Yank Magazine, the journal “for and by the servicemen.” Artie pulls some strings and gets Stu assigned as his photographer, and also shows Stu a glimpse of the gay world that thrived just beneath the surface of the US Army in the 1940s…
But after 10 months fate brings Stu and Mitch back together again as Mitch’s division heads for battle at Iwo Jima, while Stu and Artie cover the story for Yank Magazine… and Stu has to fight in ways he never expected.
....YANK! tells Stu's, Mitch's, and Artie's stories, as well as the stories of the other men in Charlie Company. It explores what it means to be a man, and what it is to fall in love and struggle to survive in a time and place where the odds are stacked against you.