In 1973, Major Charles Rane returns home to San Antonio with Sergeant Johnny Vohden, and two other soldiers, after spending seven years as a POW in Hanoi. He finds a home very different from the one he left when he meets his wife Janet, his son Mark, and local policeman Cliff, waiting to drive him home. Rane soon realizes that his son does not remember him, and that Cliff seems overly familiar with Janet and Mark. Janet admits that she has become engaged to Cliff and has no plans to break it off, despite still having feelings for Rane. Rane stoically accepts this, but privately reacts by self-imposing the same institutionalized daily regime he had in captivity.