News that Goldman and Anderson are missing and believed dead devastates the platoon and Alex.

McKay decides he is personally going to get the sniper who has been taking out helicopters... but with Anderson and Goldman on the ground and him in the air, HE ends up the next target, crashing and killing his co-pilot. Johnson, with only 72 hours left, gets a bad case of ""short timer's nerves"". Meanwhile a crazy CIA operative -- Duke Fontaine -- takes several VC suspects up in a helicopter and starts throwing them out until one of them will talk. Anderson and the team are going to go out after a VC-recruiter and get permission for Johnson not to go but because Johnson has decided that he ""must stick to the routine"" he ends up going. Taylor and Johnson are captured by the VC and tortured by a sadistic Vietnamese man.

lor is expecting to be promoted at any moment, and opens his mail to find a letter from Johnson talking about how great things are back in the World. Anderson is forced to tell Taylor that he has been passed over for promotion. Taylor starts to deal with the black/white issue -- badly. Percell goes to a black ""bar"" to get Taylor when it becomes obvious that Taylor isn't coming home unless someone goes to get him. Goldman is told that Team Viking is going to go on a mission being dictated by a local Vietnamese Province Chief. The man is going to trade permission to use his village as a base for artillery (which will save many American lives) for the team's going to get his wife). Only after the team agrees do they discover that the woman is pregnant (with another man's child), sick and running from her husband.

Newbie replacements arrive, including a young man that gains Anderson's attention as he and Team Viking return from the field, as the boy proves to be 15 years old. FNGs are moving in all over Team Viking. Goldman (suffering from the same shortage of room) finds himself bunked up with McKay. Team Viking gets assigned a recon mission based on Fontaine's information. Anderson and Goldman spend as much time as possible breaking in the new guys. Zeke and Myron head out with 18 FNG's. Anderson's unit stops to dig in a defensive position to work from, but before completing the bunkers they are attacked by the enemy, and due to outstanding bravery and courage, a few actually survive.

Team Viking earns a 3-day pass and then promptly gets itself in trouble because of their brawling. While the major is reading every one out about this, a shot from the jungle kills him. Anderson assigns Bell and Doc to work at the orphanage and takes the rest of them out. Goldman is sent out to find the sniper ""or else"". McKay's new gunner opens fire on the Americans below him -- by mistake -- killing a large number of them. The Team gets thoroughly drunk and Bell climbs up on the top of a building and ends up falling to his death. When the others realize what has happened they decide to get him listed as KIA. McKay, meanwhile, goes after the sniper himself!