The Army called it desertion. Three generations of soldiers called it a lie. It is 1970, at the height of the Vietnam War, and a young lieutenant faces court-martial for desertion in the face of the enemy. He is Matthew Blue IV, a third-generation soldier from an illustrious southern family. His grandfather, a general, fought in World War II; his father earned his stripes in Korea. Now, from the quagmire called Vietnam, the controversial trial of the last Army Blue is about to explode outward, probing the intense bonds and pressures that unite and divide an extraordinary military family . . . and America itself.