Tod and Linc, in the Tampa, Florida area, visit Linc's former platoon leader. Unknown to Linc,the one-time peerless leader has suffered a brain injury which has reduced him mentally to a child. The sad story does not affect Linc's loyalty to the man but frustrates Tod when Linc decides to stay and help.
Linc finds out his old Lieutenant, (Dick York), for whom he had much respect, is living nearby and decides to pay him a visit. He finds him in his lieutenant's uniform. But something is missing. He doesn't recognize Linc. It turns out he's sustained a brain injury that deprived him of all his memory after the age of 8. In fact he thinks that he is age 8 and has the personality of a child, even if he retains some of the skills he learned as an adult.
His dream is to refurbish an old, wheel-less car that sits on cement blocks. He has succeeded and he dreams of driving around the country in it. It represents something he can control. When Linc obtains some tires, the lieutenant doesn't want them to be put on the car. Once someone else had put something on it, it's no longer his. Tod, again playing the skeptic rather than the dreamer, recognizes this and tries to convince Linc not to be "drawn into his 8 year old world", even threatening to drive off and leave him there. Eventually they drive off down the road the lieutenant will never see as he sits in his car with his proud, sad family and runs the engine for the car that can't go anyplace, except in his mind.
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