Colonel Kirby has been given operational command of the US Green Beret forces in Vietnam is about to be shipped. At Fort Bragg, newspaper reporter George Beckworth (portrayed by David Janssen) attends a Special Forces briefing on America's role in the Vietnam War. Held at the Gabriel Demonstration Area, honoring SGT Jimmy Gabriel, the first Special Forces soldier killed in Vietnam, the briefing encompasses a demonstration and comprehensive explanation of the rationale behind the U.S. military's involvement in the conflict. The Green Berets say that military involvement is decided by the political leadership. Though, it is hard for humans to stand by when innocent civilians are massacred in a political and ideological war. Sgt. Doc McGee says that the South Vietnamese are fighting even though their entire political leadership has been decimated, along with their families. Meanwhile, Green Beret tour guides at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, showcase Soviet and Chinese-manufactured weapons provided to soldiers and guerrillas fighting for the communist North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and Viet Cong (VC) to civilian visitors at the U.S. Infantry School. The Green Berets are a well-trained, professional fighting unit. Each member of the unit knows their role in the case of battle. Each soldier can speak multiple languages and knows that they are a backup to specific people in the unit. Skeptical civilians and journalists are informed that the United States is combating multinational Communism in Vietnam, citing evidence such as weapons and equipment seized from North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong guerrillas, sourced from the Soviet Union, Communist Czechoslovakia, and Communist China. Sgt Muldoon says that the US military is fighting back against the communist domination of the world. Despite this explanation, Beckworth maintains doubts regarding the merits of U.S. intervention in Vietnam's internal conflict. When questioned by Green Beret Colonel Mike Kirby (John Wayne) about his firsthand experience in Southeast Asia, Beckworth admits he has none, leading to a dismissive response regarding his perspective. Recognizing his lack of knowledge, Beckworth resolves to travel to Vietnam to report firsthand on the situation. Colonel Kirby is posted to South Vietnam with two handpicked A-Teams of Special Forces troopers. One A-Team is to replace a team at a base-camp (led by Colonel Morgan (Bruce Cabot)) working with South Vietnamese (led by Colonel Cai) and Montagnard soldiers whilst the other A-Team is to form a counter guerrilla Mike force. The A teams are deployed along the Laos and Cambodian borders, each their own camp. While selecting his teams, Kirby intercepts a Sgt Petersen (Jim Hutton) from another unit who is scrounging supplies from Kirby's supply depot. Realizing Petersen's skills, Kirby promotes him and brings him onto his SF team. Sgt. Provo (Luke Askew) is a heavy weapons specialist and volunteers for the teams as he wants to be in the middle of the action. The A team is airlifted to their designated base camp from HQ. Kirby's A team relieves Capt. Coleman (Jason Evers) and his men, who return back to HQ. Arriving In South Vietnam, they meet Beckworth whom Kirby allows to join them at the base-camp (camp A-107, situated in the heart of VC country) where he witnesses the humanitarian aspect (irrigation ditches, bandages, candy for children) of the Special Forces mission. Still, he remains skeptical of the U.S.'s need to be there. The camp is circular, and surrounded by a 150 feet circular kill zone, which leads into the dense forest. Kirby orders for the kill zone to be extended by another 300 feet using a detachment of the Seabees. The camp is also surrounded by Punji sticks, used to impale an incoming enemy army. Other defenses include barbed wire fence and Claymore mines. Petersen is designated to find corrugated tin to complete the task of finishing the camp. He is also ordered to procure .50 caliber machine guns for the camp. The enemy forces mounts a mortar attack (which have been very regular recently), which is very accurate and takes out the main buildings of the camp. Coleman is killed in the attack, just a day before he was going to return home. The accuracy of the shooting that the VC have eyes inside the camp. Kirby outfits the helicopters with ammunition and scouts the nearby jungles for VC or NVA soldiers. He attacks their positions with rockets to push them back. The Seabees arrive finally and bring in heavy equipment to move the jungle back 300 feet from the base, giving Kirby an expanded killing zone. Petersen arranges the .50 caliber guns, which are mounted on an elevated position inside the base, giving a wide killing arc. Sergeant Muldoon notices a South Vietnamese soldier acting suspiciously (taking measurements and observing everything very carefully) and knocks him out, allowing Captain Nghiem (George Takei) to interrogate him. Nghiem is convinced that the soldier is a spy when he finds the Zippo lighter of a dead US soldier in his possession. 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 few days later, while accompanying Kirby and his team on a patrol in the nearby mountains, Beckworth finds that the family of a village chief he had befriended earlier have been tortured and executed by the Viet Cong for cooperating with the Americans. The injured daughter of the chief had been treated by Doc McGee and Beckworth had made friends with her by giving her his necklace. The girl was sexually assaulted by VC soldiers before being dumped in the jungle. During this period, Petersen befriends a young native boy named Hamchuck (Craig Jue), a war orphan who has no family other than his dog and the soldiers at the base-camp. The camp soldiers can sense an enemy buildup of forces around 15 Kms from the base. They know that an attack is coming and Kirby requests air support to be on standby. Beckworth changes his mind after a ferocious North Vietnamese Army attack upon the SF camp. The camp is ready, and the armed choppers attack the advancing enemy from the air, while the ground forces attack from their well concealed positions. Eventually, enemy sappers breach the perimeter by blowing openings in the barbed wire fences around the camp, and the Green Berets and South Vietnamese are forced to fall back to the inner perimeter. Nghiem sets off hidden explosives which kill the spies, but soon dies afterwards after being hit by a mortar. As the battle rages, the dog is killed, and the boy tearfully buries his faithful companion. Symbolically, the boy uses the stick he had used to dig the dog's grave as the tombstone. As the soldiers rush to their defensive positions, the stick is knocked away, leaving an unmarked grave. Due to the intense 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 (and the VC flag flying over the camp), Kirby requests an airstrike by an AC-47 gunship, call-sign Puff the Magic Dragon, which annihilates the Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese Army regulars within Camp A-107. With the enemy having taken major casualties, Kirby and his team re-occupy the destroyed camp. Kirby orders his men to get some sleep as they need to start rebuilding the base all over again. Beckworth admits he probably will be fired from the newspaper for filing a story supporting the American war. Sgt. Provo had noticed that all war heroes had buildings named after them in Vietnam. But he was worried that nothing rhymes with his name. After he is mortally wounded in the VC attack, before dying, he reveals the name of the building dedicated to him, "Provo's Privy". Back at headquarters, Kirby meets with his superior, Colonel Morgan, and his South Vietnamese counterpart, Colonel Cai (Jack Soo). They tell him about a top-secret mission to capture North Vietnamese General Pha Son Ti, allowing them to end the war on South Vietnamese terms, as well as disrupting 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. Col. Mike Kirby leads a team of Green Berets, Montagnards (an umbrella term for the various indigenous peoples of the Central Highlands of Vietnam), and ARVN soldiers on a top-secret kidnap mission to capture General Ti, who lives, eats, and drinks very well, in a guarded mansion, while the common people go hungry, cold, and naked. Among those Cai selects (and accompanies) are Kirby, Muldoon (Aldo Ray), 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 to stop pursuit by the enemy forces, while Kirby and the rest of the team head towards the plantation. After eliminating the plantation's guards, the group subdue Ti with Lin's help, and put him in the trunk of his car. Kirby, Cai, Petersen, Watson (Eddy Donno), and Lin drive away, but the rest of the team is killed by the guards while attempting 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. Beckworth watches as Hamchuck awaits the return of the helicopters carrying the survivors of the raid. He realizes the toll of the war as Hamchuck runs crying from helicopter to helicopter, searching for Petersen. Kirby walks over to the boy and tells him the sad news. Hamchuck asks plaintively, "what will happen to me now?" Kirby places Petersen's green beret on him and says, "You let me worry about that, Green Beret. You're what this thing's all about." The two walk holding hands along the beach into the sunset.
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