Franklin LeBaron Sharps is a young paratrooper sent to Vietnam in 1965 with the celebrated 101(st) Airborne Division -- the "Screaming Eagles." The great-grandson of Sergeant Major Augustus Sharps and son of Brigadier General Samuel Sharps, a former Tuskeegee Airman, Franklin fights a war on two fronts: in Vietnam he is determined to repay the Viet Cong for their killing of his brother, and at home he fights against his father's attempts to reconcile with the family he deserted.

Drawing on his own experience as a paratrooper in Vietnam, Tom Willard takes a brutally graphic look at the war in its early years -- a time when United States was sorely divided and its military heroes suffered bravely both abroad and at home.