The history of the series develops around three Suvorov graduates - Ilya Sukhomlin, Stepan Perepechko and Alexei Syrnikov, who entered the Moscow Higher Military Command School at the end of the summer, where each of them is awarded the rank of junior sergeant. Along with the Suvorovites, graduates of ordinary schools, without a military education, called "schoolchildren" - Dmitry Krasilnikov, Gennady Varnava and Nikolai Kovnadsky, enter the school. The third side is made up of the so-called "army men" - Evgeny Bragin, Sergey Gonchar and Stepan Prokhorov - who have already served as conscripts in the army and have more practice than theory. Later, Maxim Makarov, transferred from St. Petersburg for a fight with a colleague, joins the main characters. Aleksey Syrnikov, meanwhile, is being transferred to the Ryazan Airborne School, which he dreamed about while still being a Suvorovite.