Due to frustration at being unable to wrest custody of his son from his drug addicted wife, Corporal Wetzel was distracted during a war game exercise and crashed a tank. Accused of dereliction of duty, Wetzel admits to being diverted on the job, but insists that Mac and Harm must keep him out of jail, since his arrest would certainly mean losing his son.

Harm and Mac like Wetzel and understand that his frustration accounts for his poor judgment. But nobody's more surprised than they when Wetzel winds up in a tank in a stand-off with the military, questioning why he's being forced to choose between being a marine and being a father.

(The time is 1980, several Russian soldiers are guarding a prisoner who is Harmon Rabb, Sr. at a train station. The KGB take a photo of the persons gathered there - a photo which has made its way to Harmon Rabb, Jr. in the present time.)

Clayton Webb meets with Harm at JAG and tells him who the men in the photo are. Webb mentions that one of them, Victor Lushov is now working in San Diego. Harm requests from the Admiral to take an F-14 hop to San Diego to visit his mother, keeping secret his true intentions.

In San Diego, Harm meets with Lushov who turns out to be a Russian pilot who was instrumental interoggating Harm, Sr. after he was shot down over Vietnam, later befriending him. He tells Harm Jr. all about what happened to his father, that Harm Sr. fed all kinds of disinformation to the Russians, which was worse than telling them nothing. Lushov gives Harm Jr. the KGB file number for his father. And says he wants to live and will not repeat what he has said to anyone.