In March 1970, a U.S. Army officer arrived at the Iowa farm of Peg and Gene Mullen and informed them that their son Michael had been killed in Vietnam by "friendly fire." Their determined attempts to learn more about the circumstances of their son's death are the subject of this true account film.

On a second tour of duty in Vietnam in 1970, Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Schwarzkopf, 37, was heading the Americal Division's 1st. Battalion, 6th Infantry, 198th Brigade, when a section of its company became trapped in a mine field. Schwarzkopf was the first to arrive at the scene in a helicopter and oversaw the immediate evacuation of the wounded. The factual events that unfold in this telefeature are based on the book by C.D.B. Bryan. Schwarzkopf's pseudonymous character, Col. Byron Schindler, is portrayed here by William Jordan.