Racial discrimination and a Vietnam War cover-up are at the center of an absorbing drama that plays as a mystery. Maj. Kendall Laird, a career Army man, is assigned to assist the parents of a black lieutenant, killed in Vietnam, in the burial of their son in his Georgia home town. However, the deceased is denied interment in a "white only" cemetery. To settle the matter without litigation, Laird resolves to convince the community that the lieutenant died a hero. So he seeks information from the slain officer's men, and learns that they have put him up for a Silver Star. Then he uncovers unsettling facts that may point to a "fragging": the killing of the lieutenant by his own troops.