Episode spoilers.
Japan's surrender reaches Leckie in hospital and Sledge's company on Okinawa. The celebrations leave room for uncertainty about going home. On the train through America, Burgin gets off first. Snafu later leaves without waking Sledge for a farewell. Their journey ends the daily companionship that carried them through combat. In Alabama, Phillips meets Sledge at the station and takes him back to his parents, but familiar rooms do not stop the nightmares that follow him into sleep.
Leckie returns to New Jersey and newspaper work. He approaches Vera in his dress uniform and persuades her to have dinner with him. Their conversation includes the letters he wrote during the war but never sent. His courtship offers a way back into civilian life that he is ready to pursue. Lena makes a different visit, meeting Basilone's parents and giving them his Medal of Honor. An initially awkward conversation becomes a meeting between people grieving the same man.
Sledge finds ordinary expectations harder to meet. Wearing his uniform and discussing college do not make his wartime experience easy to explain. His father takes him hunting, hoping to share something they enjoyed before the war. Sledge cannot bring himself to shoot and breaks down in tears. His father holds him and offers support without demanding an explanation. The final montage identifies the people behind the characters and follows their later lives, after the drama has ended with families facing the work of living beyond combat.