Jamie Breedlove is exceptionally skilled at one thing—shooting a rifle. As part of President Johnson's effort to fortify U.S. troops in Vietnam, Jamie enlists, hoping to make the Army his career. His marksmanship lands him in sniper school, followed by his selection to serve in an exclusive and dangerous, newly formed group of intelligence scouts known as Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPs), today's Army Rangers. Injured and disenfranchised, Jamie is discharged only to confront an insidious war at home in a country upended by radical social change and torn apart by protests and violent insurrection. It's 1969.

Seeking young informants to infiltrate the most radical elements of the anti-war movement, Hoover's FBI recruits Jamie as a potent weapon of their own. He finds himself in a war once again, this time on the campus of the University of Michigan where the FBI has enrolled Jamie as a student. Caught between loyalty to his country and his growing identification with the anti-war movement, Jamie finds himself straddling a troublesome line between conscience and duty. In a final act of defiance, he becomes the tip of the sword in a plot that forces him to finally choose a side and embrace what he truly values.