Ultimate Sacrifice is a contemporary fictional novel following a maturing teenager through his early event controlled adult life. Joshua MacDonald is an eldest son of an ultra conservative Presbyterian minister's family. He is profoundly influenced by his Christian upbringing, a devoted and supportive mother and intermittently agitated by a younger brother. As a latent teenager, Joshua is deeply moved by the 9/11 terrorist atrocity. Dedicated to his beliefs in God, family and country and following a failed first love, he has all the justification needed to make a decision to join the Marines. Enthusiastically, he finds himself deeply involved in the Iraq conflict as a Marine medical corpsman. He must become a man at once to survive while serving his country, the Marine Corps and his comrades. He eventually finds himself singularly involved in an enemy confrontation over which he has no control. Joshua's dramatic return to America after two Iraq tours leads to a first hand experience and involvement into the war's politics. Eventually changing his commitment to finishing his college education, he finds true love and marriage. His rapidly progressing and changing life events are full of passion, tragedy, confusion and anguish. A very unpredictable ending awaits the reader.