Sturges' barrage at patriotism and small-town America: Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith, who comes from a family of war heroes, is about to return home in disgrace after being discharged from the service for chronic hayfever. In San Francisco he falls in with six Marines, led by ex-fighter Freddie Steele as a pug with a severe mother complex, who persuade him to pose as a hero in order to please his mother.