The story centers around Brian Anderson (played by actor Dennis Christopher), a U.S. Army soldier serving in South Vietnam, who is only out for his own neck, who ends up drawn into taking care of orphans in a nearby orphanage, keeping a promise to a friend who was killed in action.

At first, he views the task with a degree of annoyance, then slowly begins to warm up to the orphans, risking his life and his career to protect them.

Susan Saint James played a doctor and the love interest to Brian Anderson.

Although the film portrayed military corruption and the war's victims, the Defense Department supported it.

This has been blamed on its relatively poor production values and its reportedly having a complicated, rather than simply positive or negative, view of the war.