Copyright 1997 Showtime Networks

Chris Small is the model All-American soldier: proud, strong, patriotic, disciplined. Real "career military" material. But no training could have prepared him for the sights and sounds of Desert Storm: chemical-detecting alarm systems blaring throughout the night, camel carcasses peppered with dead carrion flies rotting in the blazing sun, scud missile fragments imbedded in the sand, oil-fire clouds on the horizon. Sights and sounds that stay with him even as he disembarks the plane at the Memphis airport to the sights and sounds of his cheering friends and family.

His return home from the Gulf is a triumphant one for him and his wife, Teri, and their reunion lovemaking burns with romance. But their passion is followed by a searing pain and Chris becomes thinner, lethargic, and different somehow. Weight loss, digestive problems, upper respiratory infections and skin rashes are also crippling Chris' ability to work. Teri is anxious, fearful and suddenly suffering many of the same symptoms. The VA doctors say it's all stress-related. Teri thinks ... feels ... knows there is more to it than stress. She starts asking more questions, pushing for more.

While Chris will do anything to protect his future with the Army, including hiding his ailments and denying his condition, Teri is determined to keep her family whole. Chris insists that Teri not make waves, with the doctors, the Army brass or anyone else. The toll on their marriage is evident. Their baby girl is born with strange rashes. A once-loving family is torn apart, ravaged by an invisible enemy, spoiled by war.

Just as Chris Small is returning home, Jeran Gallimore is leaving. The Waco, Texas "farm boy" has been offered a good-paying job aiding in the clean-up effort of the Persian Gulf -- capping off oil wells, repairing, disassembling and packing up equipment. With Bible in hand, he kisses his loving sister, a very pregnant Jerrilinn Folz, assures her he'll be fine and says good-bye.

For Jeran, the desert is not what he expected. The flatness is interrupted by the unevenness of dead Iraquis and dead animals. The color is not a sandy beige, but orange and black. His camera catches images of the black and orange skies, the orange powder covering the bombs and equipment, the same orange silt that covers his clothes and body. Black soot is everywhere. Jeran and his crew wonder if what they are cleaning is toxic. He complains to his boss about their protective gear. His boss tells him he can quit, but Jeran is no quitter.

By the time he returns to Texas, Jeran is already gravely ill. Jerrilinn is frightened and confused as she watches her once-strapping brother reduced to a convulsing vegetable. It won't be long before tumorous brain cancer, a cancer his doctors do not recognize, will take his life, destroying another civilian family in the process.

Jim Tuite isn't really interested in watching the CNN coverage of the troops returning from the Gulf. After two tours in Vietnam and years of active duty as a presidential Secret Service agent, he has had enough of wars and politics and is enjoying a break from his Ph.D. dissertation.

Tuite takes a job with Senator Donald Riegle that is supposed to be temporary, just until the Senator's regular defense legislative assistant returns from maternity leave. Then the information starts pouring in: calls and letters from veterans telling of their illnesses and their treatment, or lack thereof, by the VA; references to chemical agent detection and exposures during the war; reports from the Czech Ministry of Defense confirming the presence of chemical agents in the areas of Northern Saudi Arabia; testimony at Congressional hearings; covert information from an anonymous albeit accurate source; once-secret documents discovered through the Freedom of Information Act; evidence of government approval of U.S. companies' sales of biological and chemical components to Iraq; media reports and Pentagon denials. Tuite's temporary job would last two years. His investigation continues to this day.

There are more stories: medivac nurses recalling poor conditions at field hospitals; current and former military officers testifying to explosions and exposures; mothers recounting memories of their once-athletic sons; worried grandchildren writing letters to congressmen about their sick grandfathers.

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"Unfortunately the Secretary of Defense has stated that the wind was coming from the opposite direction."