Plot
An aged Will McLean, returning to the Carolina Military Institute in Charleston, South Carolina, an unknown number of years after his graduation, tells the story of his life at the Institute. In 1966, Will was an English major on a basketball scholarship, in his fourth and final year at the Institute. Will is not interested in a military career, and had only attended on account of his father, also an alumnus. His father died several years before Will started, where he made a promise to eventually wear the Institute's graduate ring. He is generally well-liked and his professors and peers recognize him for his integrity and fairness, although he is also sarcastic and independent. Will struggles to fit into the strict military environment, but finds solace in his three roommates, who have become his closest friends: Tradd St. Croix, the son of an upper-class Charlestonian family, and two brawny Italian-American boys from the North, Dante "Pig" Pignetti and Mark Santoro. They all look forward to graduation, although Will's friends will head off to fight in the Vietnam War, which Will is personally against. However, Will does have some pride in the Institute, representing it in basketball. Though anti-war, he also despises the discrimination the Institute faces from civilian students of other colleges due to its military association, which he sees at away games. For example, when Will plays a game against the Virginia Military Institute, which is considered their biggest rival game, he notes that VMI was the only team all season that did not harass him and his teammates.
Retired U.S. Army officer Colonel Thomas "The Bear" Berrineau, the Commandant of Cadets, asks Will to look out for the Institute's first black cadet, Tom Pearce, knowing that Will is the only cadet unopposed to racial integration. Will also begins a secret relationship with Annie Kate Gervais, a girl from an upper-class Charlestonian family who has become pregnant from a boy who refused to marry her, though their relationship is doomed because Will is Irish-American, Catholic, and not wealthy. Will attempts to aid a struggling freshman, Poteete, who has been targeted by numerous upperclassmen. Shamed by his inability to cope with the harshness of the Institute's freshman system, Poteete hangs himself, leaving behind his ominous claim of a "house where they take freshmen" to be tormented outside the oversight of the Commandant's office.
In an extended flashback, Will then describes his own plebe year three years earlier. Will learns that the only way to survive is to bond closely with the other members of his class against the cadre. Having entered the college on a basketball scholarship, Will is also protected by other members of the basketball team who don't want to see Will physically harmed and, at one point, rescue him from a particularly brutal hazing incident. Many of Will's classmates are not so lucky, and resign from the school due to the unrelenting hazing.
One recruit swiftly rises to prominence: Bobby Bentley, who has a problem with urinating on himself due to the stress of hazing but is otherwise in excellent shape. Bentley refuses to quit on himself or his classmates, and endures all the torments the upperclassmen can devise. Conventional hazing methods fail to break Bentley and his classmates gradually rally around him, and making Will's cadre the subject of ridicule of the entire corps of cadets. One evening, Bobby Bentley is taken off campus by unknown individuals and withdraws from the Institute the following day for unknown reasons. A first classman claims that a secret society of cadets had been watching Bobby Bentley and, once it became clear the R Company cadre had failed to run Bentley out of the school, The Ten had decided to act. Near the end of the year, Will's freshman class is recognized as cadets, and the hazing ends. Will vows to himself that he will never participate in tormenting future generations of plebes, seeing no value in organized cruelty.
Back in Will's senior year, he hears new rumors of The Ten, a mysterious Institute secret society whose members are handpicked for embodying the greatest virtues of the Institute. The Ten ensures certain cadets, deemed unacceptable to "wear the ring" (that is, to be a graduate of the Institute, denoted by wearing of a class ring), are run out by any means necessary. Aided in his investigation by a mentor, a professor in the History department, Will discovers that The Ten are real and are trying to run Pearce out to keep the Institute all white. Meanwhile, Will and the other seniors receive their class rings in a solemn ceremony, and Will wins the final basketball game of his career in quadruple overtime against the Virginia Military Institute.
Annie Kate's baby is stillborn and she rejects Will, wanting to forget all about the time she spent pregnant. Will looks further into The Ten and reunites with Bobby Bentley, who reveals that, during their plebe year, he was spirited away to a house, and was threatened, tortured, and finally agreed to quit when The Ten prepared to burn him alive. Bentley says his ultimate decision to quit was not due to the torture, but the realization he no longer wished to be associated with any organization that would have a group like The Ten. Bentley recalls one member of The Ten, whom they piece together as a high-ranking cadet from their plebe year. Will, Mark, and Pig, discovering this Ten member is now a student at a nearby law school, abduct him, then interrogate him on a secluded railroad track until he reveals the location of the house, which is a plantation house owned by General Bentley Durrell, the superintendent of the Institute. When Pearce is kidnapped by the Ten, Will goes to the house and interrupts the torture of Pearce. Pig and Mark arrive to rescue Will as The Ten pursue him, but The Ten now know of the few trying to move against them.
Pearce is intimidated into silence, and The Ten begin a campaign to have Mark, Pig and Will thrown out of the school. Pig is caught on an honor code violation due to The Ten and loses the honor court case, despite Will, Tradd and Mark each speaking in his defense. After he is expelled and drummed out of school, he throws himself in front of a train, killing himself. Will and Mark soon after begin getting demerits for a wide range of offenses, real and fabricated. Just as they are about to be dismissed, Will discovers that Tradd's father was a member of The Ten. He and Mark read his journals and discover the names of all current and former members. They also realize Tradd is the father of Annie Kate's baby, is a member of The Ten in their class, and was thus informing on his roommates from the start. Soon after, Will confronts Tradd and ends their friendship.
Facing expulsion for excess demerits, Will confronts General Durrell and demands that he and Mark be allowed to graduate. Durrell refuses, citing their extensive list of infractions and the fact that the Institute graduate they kidnapped has contacted him and wants to press charges. The Bear then enters the General's office, informing him that multiple cadets who were run out of the Institute are willing to attest to The Ten's existence and activities in court. General Durrell relents when also faced with the threat of exposure to the press, as evidenced by Mark seen outside with letters containing the information ready to be mailed. Will and Mark are allowed to graduate, but General Durrell's decision to fire Colonel Berrineau as Commandant stands. The General and The Ten survive with their power intact, but forever shaken, as for the first time an opponent has stood against them and won.
Shortly before graduation, Will receives a letter from Annie Kate, thanking him for standing by her and saying he will make a good husband to whatever woman he finds. Reflecting on his graduation, Will notes that eight of his fellow cadets will eventually be killed in action in the Vietnam War, Mark among them. Will also reveals that The Ten member and class "golden boy" John Alexander would eventually fade into obscurity, last seen working as a ROTC instructor at a small university, while Mark Santoro tops the entire class in awards for valor. As Will receives his diploma from the Institute, General Durrell coldly orders him not to disgrace the ring, but Will simply replies with "Dante Pignetti", honoring his former roommate and showing his contempt for the General by breaking the school's taboo of ever speaking the name of a drummed-out cadet. The Bear appears at their graduation to congratulate Will. Disgusted at seeing General Durrell's signature on his diploma, Will asks Colonel Berrineau to sign it as Will wants the name of a man he can respect on the diploma. The Bear hands the diploma back without signing it, remarking, "There already is, Bubba", pointing to Will's name.
