This is story of eighteen year old African-American Walter Little and his first duty station in the US Navy in 1967. After reporting for duty on board a Navy aircraft carrier, Walter fell in with the Brothers. A group of African-American men determined to realize their dreams granted by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Circumcision unfolds against the backdrop of the cold war as the carrier and its nuclear armada cruise the Mediterranean Seas a few weeks before the outbreak of the Six Day War in the Middle East. Nearly, five thousand men work in shifts twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Racial tensions are high and gangs prowl the ship and face off during the night. The Brothers determine that to be like Mohammed Ali you first need a circumcision. And one morning, Walter shows up at sick call and tells the duty corpsman,