Based on true events, this is a new take on the classic coming-of-age story.
The year is 1951. Thirteen-year-old HUGH is raised by his divorced father DOC. When Doc miraculously delivers the baby of a gunshot victim with no more than a jackknife, Hugh doubts that he can ever be like his heroic father, but Hugh is devastated when Doc dies in a plane crash and Hugh must live with his estranged alcoholic mother.
Despite his late father’s lessons, Hugh blames God and his mother for his misfortunes, and she ships her troubled son off to military school. Bullied and miserable, Hugh discovers inspiration in Doc’s wartime journal, which recounts Doc’s harrowing exploits in the China-Burma-India theater of World War II. Hugh improves in school, finds courage to court the school commandant’s daughter, and ultimately stands up to the bully, but his mother still manages to undermine Hugh’s confidence. Angry and bitter, Hugh finds courage and a new perspective in hard labor on the Mississippi River, facing racial prejudice and his own self-doubt when he, like his father, bravely delivers a young woman’s baby.
Graduating with honors, Hugh ultimately confronts and accepts both his mother’s and his father’s shortcomings and receives a final message of inspiration from Doc that confirms their eternal bond and restores Hugh’s faith in God and in himself.