As a disciplinary measure, the Army transfers a heavy-handed Major to a ROTC academy where he must shape-up cadets and improve the school's overall ratings.
A Major noted for advancing with his mouth before thinking is given a choice: to be drummed out of the Army, or take command of and shape up the ROTC program at Sheridan Academy before it fails its next inspection. At Sheridan he encounters three hundred pre-teen cadets who range from rascally to adorable, and a female doctor who has just the right prescription for him.—Martin H. Booda <[email protected]>
US Army Major Barney Benson is a WWII and Korean War veteran whose combat experience has shaped him as a person. Currently a training officer, he is mocked behind his back by some of his soldiers as nothing they do ever seems to be good enough in his mentality of a miserable soldier is better than a dead one, he quite outspoken on the matter in recycling the same speeches to the men over and over without probably realizing it. When some of Benson's comments of how soft the new generation of soldiers are hits the media putting the army in a bad light, his superior officer General Jim Ramsey, giving him a break in knowing first hand his war record in offering the latter, issues him three options as punishment: resigning, being placed on inactive duty, or being reassigned to ROTC training duty at Sheridan Military Academy in Santa Barbara, it which did not pass its last inspection and is placed on one year probation. Accepting the latter under duress, Benson not only learns that Sheridan is otherwise run by a Christian order of nuns led by Mother Redempta, but that the cadets are much younger than he expected, the youngest being six year old Private Thomas "Tiger" Flaherty, the fact of he missing home and family literally as a child more than Benson can comprehend. While Mother Redempta, knowing Benson's recent past and why he was assigned there, hopes that he will find his way in what the boys need which is much different even than what his soldiers needed, Benson ends up being at odds with the majority of the boys, who admittedly need some discipline which Benson is more than willing to issue, but also some fatherly guidance which he is not. Caught in the middle is the academy's resident doctor, Kay Lambert, who wants what is holistically best for the boys which is not what Benson is offering them, but the two who mutually start to fall for the other romantically.—Huggo
