Billy Pilgrim was born in 1922 and grew up in Ilium, New York. He does relatively well in high school, takes night classes at the Ilium School of Optometry, and is drafted into the army during World War II. Billy's father dies in a hunting accident shortly before Billy ships overseas to join an infantry regiment in Luxembourg. Billy is thrown into the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium and is almost immediately taken prisoner by …showed first 75 words of 608 total…

…showed last 75 words of 608 total…paper. His daughter does not know what to do with him. Billy makes a tape recording of his account of his death, which he predicts will occur in 1976 after Chicago has been hydrogen-bombed by the Chinese. He knows exactly how it will happen: a vengeful man he knew in the war will hire someone to kill him. Billy notes that he will die and then will skip back to some other point in his life.