Born to a struggling working class family, Ray Summers grows closer than a brother to his lifelong chum, Josh Jarmon. At college Ray becomes absorbed in the antiwar movement and bridles at his new I-A status while Josh is offered a posting as a chemist and a deferment. With his degree in hand, Josh heads from Virginia to California with pregnant and beautiful Megan, who is Ray's sister. As peaceful student protests voice legitimate objections to the Vietnam War, a treacherous and ominous cabal co-opts the Students for a Democratic Society, the key student movement. It plots nothing less than the conversion of America to a communist state. The two old pals and their families must confront unimagined and unspeakable calamity while the country is ripped apart around them.