As he is dying in Vietnam, a young soldier remembers his girlfriend, and the fights he had with his parents over becoming a musician instead of going to college and his plan to evade the draft. He also recalls the "summertree" where he spent so many of his happiest times he was sent off to war.
Bored with his experience at the university, twenty-year-old sophomore Jerry McAdams decides to bring meaning into his life by becoming a "big brother" to a lonely black boy named Marvis Johnson. One day, while playing football, Marvis scrapes his knee and Jerry takes him to a doctor's office where Vanetta, the doctor's nurse, treats the boy. Vanetta, who is estranged from her husband, a soldier serving in Vietnam, begins to date Jerry, and soon after, Jerry moves into Vanetta's apartment. Over his parents' objections, Jerry, who has delighted in playing the guitar ever since his parents gave him one as a child, decides to drop out of college to entertain at a coffee house while he applies for admission to a music conservatory. When the conservatory turns him down because he lacks formal music training, Jerry's draft classification is changed to 1-A, making him eligible to be sent to fight in Vietnam. Rather than go to war, Jerry decides to flee to Canada, and soon after, Vanetta ends their affair when her husband returns home. Marvis, whose soldier brother has recently been killed in combat, is alienated by Jerry's decision, as is Jerry's father Herb. When Jerry stops to say goodbye to his parents, his father denounces him as a draft dodger, but his mother Ruth defends him, saying that her own father fled Poland to avoid the draft. To prevent Jerry from leaving, Herb arranges for a mechanic to sabotage his car, but Jerry overhears their conversation and feeling betrayed, tearfully drives off. Some time later, Herb and Ruth climb into bed and turn on the television news. As they begin to make love, the television screen shows clips of mortally wounded soldiers in Vietnam being carried to a helicopter for transport from the battle field. Preoccupied, Herb and Ruth fail to notice as the television camera focuses in on one of the soldiers, their son Jerry.
