After a Navy SEAL, as part of a SEAL team, rescues an American Undersecretary of State, President Clinton nominates him for the Medal of Honor. However, Rabb and Mac's investigation into the matter leads to disturbing information, such as leaving a man behind, thus breaking the code of the SEALs. To make matters worse, the SEAL in question refuses to help provide any information that would help out his cause.
After being diagnosed with night blindness, Lt. Cmdr. Harmon Rabb, an F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot, is forced to change careers. Cmdr. Rabb chooses to join the Navy's Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps. There he both defends and sometimes prosecutes Navy and Marine Corps defendants. He is sometimes assisted by fellow lawyer, Lt. Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie, and his other fellow JAG staff.
Many of Rabb's cases require him to both keep up his F-14 qualifications and travel the world, in order to bring justice to the cases he is trying.
Rabb must also deal with the fact that his father, also a former Navy pilot, never returned home after being held prisoner after he was shot down in North Vietnam. Rabb believing his father is still alive continues the search he has pursued to find his father, since his teens.