Harm and Mac are sent to Saudi Arabia to defend a female U.S. Naval pilot who refuses to follow the local laws and wear traditional Saudi dress and veils. Lt. Joanne Donato's outspoken refusal to be escorted by males in public and to wear proper attire causes a strain on relations between a U.S. base commander and a local Muslim cleric. It also causes Mac to feel that the lieutenant is simply being a bad soldier and disobeying orders - that is until Mac is forced to abide by the policies herself. Meanwhile, Commander Turner and Rep. Bobbi Latham have a rocky first date, making the possibility of a second seem remote until Harriet and Bud come to the rescue.
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.