Reporter George Beckworth, David Janssen, attends a Special Forces briefing about the reasons behind American involvement in the Vietnam War. When Beckworth questions the value of U.S. intervention, Green Beret Colonel Mike Kirby John Wayne challenges him to consider whether he has ever truly been to Vietnam, a prompt that pushes Beckworth to keep reporting on the events there and to look beyond surface narratives.
Kirby is assigned to assist the South Vietnamese forces. As he prepares to depart, he catches Sgt. Petersen Jim Hutton in the act of appropriating supplies, and decides to use his skills on the mission instead. Arriving in South Vietnam, they meet Beckworth, whom Kirby allows to accompany them to their camp. At the camp, they encounter a young war orphan, Ham Chuck Craig Jue, who, along with his dog Jamoke, takes a liking to Petersen. Petersen takes him in as if he were his own son, and the unit begins to form a makeshift family amidst the harsh realities of war.
Following an enemy attack, M/Sgt. Muldoon Aldo Ray notices a South Vietnamese soldier acting suspiciously and knocks him out, allowing South Vietnamese Captain Nghiem to interrogate him. After Beckworth sees Nghiem torture a confession from the soldier, he confronts Kirby, who justifies the act by telling Beckworth that their enemies are ruthless killers who deserve no legal protections of any sort in this new kind of war. A grim reminder of the moral ambiguity that pervades the conflict, this moment deepens Beckworth’s resolve to bear witness to what he sees.
A few days later, while accompanying Kirby and his team on a patrol in the nearby mountains, Beckworth finds that the granddaughter of a village chief he had befriended earlier has been tortured and executed by the Viet Cong for cooperating with the Americans. The tension escalates as the danger becomes more personal for everyone involved. The next night, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops launch a massive attack on the camp, and Beckworth is forced to fight alongside the Green Berets; he also helps move villagers into the camp to protect them from the crossfire.
The assault escalates as enemy sappers breach the perimeter by blowing openings in the barbed wire fences around the camp. Nghiem sets off hidden explosives which kill the spies, but dies afterwards after being hit by a mortar. Due to the intensity of the attack, Kirby orders a retreat from the camp, and U.S. helicopters arrive to evacuate the refugees. Petersen puts Ham Chuck on one and promises to return for him in Da Nang. With the base in enemy hands, Kirby requests an airstrike by an AC-47 gunship, callsign Puff the Magic Dragon, which annihilates the Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese Army regulars within Camp A-107. The enemy suffers heavy losses, and the Green Berets and South Vietnamese forces re-occupy the destroyed camp.
Beckworth tells Kirby he will file a story supporting U.S. involvement in the war and returns to Da Nang, determined to present a full picture of the complexities he has witnessed. Back at headquarters, Kirby meets with his superior, Colonel Morgan Bruce Cabot and his South Vietnamese counterpart, Colonel Cai Jack Soo. They outline a top-secret mission to capture North Vietnamese General Pha Son Ti, a move they believe could end the war on South Vietnamese terms and disrupt enemy leadership. Colonel Cai uses his sister-in-law Lin Irene Tsu, a fashion model, as a honey trap to lure General Ti to a former French colonial mansion in a well-guarded valley in North Vietnam.
Among those Cai selects (and accompanies) are Kirby, Muldoon, and Petersen. Muldoon, Doc McGee Raymond St. Jacques, and two of Cai’s men stay behind at a bridge over a river to set explosives to blow it up and stop pursuit by the enemy forces, while Kirby and the rest of the team head toward the plantation. After eliminating the plantation’s guards, the group subdues Ti with Lin’s help and places him in the trunk of his car. Kirby, Cai, Petersen, Sgt. Watson Eddy Donno, and Lin drive away, but the remaining guards kill the others as they attempt to escape.
At dawn, the survivors cross the bridge; it is destroyed, but McGee is seriously wounded as he and Muldoon escape, while the others airlift Ti out of the area by a Skyhook device. While Kirby and the team advance through the jungle to their extraction point, Petersen is killed by a booby-trap, and the others are forced to leave his body behind. At Da Nang, Beckworth watches as Ham Chuck runs from helicopter to helicopter, desperately searching for Petersen. Eventually, Kirby tells him of Petersen’s death and consoles him, and the two walk along the beach into the sunset, closing a chapter that blends courage, sorrow, and a complicated, unflinching look at war.
