Once an Eagle

- Season 1

(1976)

Sam Damon, from small-town Nebraska, finds life in the U.S. Army, just prior to World War I, so appealing that he breaks off his relationship with Celia, his childhood sweetheart. When war does break out, Sam is sent to fight in France where his courage and initiative raise him in rank from private to sergeant to lieutenant to captain. Along the way he crosses paths with an assertive nurse - "Tommy" Caldwell, daughter of Col. Caldwell - and an ambitious officer, Courtenay Massengale, whose promotions have come from manipulating his contacts with his superiors.

The war ends in 1918. Sam Damon marries "Tommy" Caldwell and they return to the U.S. where Sam continues his military career at a backwater Army base in Kansas. Also before returning to the U.S., Courtenay Massengale marries Emily Pawlfrey, the spoiled niece of a wealthy American senator. Back in New Jersey, however, this marriage quickly shows signs of strain as Emily taunts Courtenay about his being "unable" in the bedroom.

"Tommy" Damon gives birth to a boy, Donny, at the Army base in Kansas where Sam's military career seems to have stalled. Meanwhile Emily Massengale seeks from other men the satisfaction she can't find with her husband. She becomes pregnant by a married taxi driver and, distraught, tries suicide by overdosing on pills at a cheap motel. Rushed to an emergency room, she and the unborn child are saved. Emily now wants to divorce Courtenay but he threatens to expose her adulterous past. Reluctantly she gives in and Courtenay says they will raise the child as their own. "...

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