Do budovy NCIS se dostaví starý muž, válečný veterán z druhé světové války, nositel nejvyššího vyznamenání za chrabrost. Tento muž žádá Gippse, aby byl zatčen za to, že zabil svého přítele. Údajně ho měl utlouct svou pistolí. Gippsovi se celá situace a mužovo přiznání nezdá, považuje ho za výplod staré mysli. Naneštěstí se o situaci dozví vyšetřovatelka z JAGU a trvá na vyšetření událostí. Gipps musí vytvořit imaginární rekonstrukci za použití starých dokumentárních filmů, aby dokázal, že muž svého přítele sice zabil, ale jednalo se o ránu z milosti.

A former corporal, a Medal of Honor recipient from WWII, came to Gibbs claiming to have bashed his buddy, Wade Kean, to death while serving on Iwo Jima. Gibbs, of course, doesn't believe him and investigates it just to humor him.

Cpl. Yost began reporting the murder to 911 and no-one believed him. All of the self-blame for his buddy's death began when his wife, Dorothy, passed away. Cpl. Yost is grieving for the loss of his wife, he waltzes with Kate for the memory of her and it is one of the most touching scenes to have been aired. To see the old gentleman crying was so sad.

Gibbs attempts to let Cpl. Yost go home but is stopped by the confident and alarmingly professional Lt. Cmdr. Faith Coleman, played so wonderfully by Alicia Coppola. She is ordered to prosecute the Cpl. which nobody wants to happen especially Gibbs. Gibbs is not prepared, on any level, to let the Cpl. go to his grave carrying a guilt that he didn't deserve.

When the team goes to unearth Cpl. Kean Gibbs asks for a team of Marines to come by and honor the unearthing of his body.

Gibbs tells Tony to take the Cpl. home and to stay with him which is where Tony uncovers some awful evidence. Wade and Dorothy had been high school sweethearts. Could the Cpl. have been so jealous of Wade as to kill him so he could marry Dorothy?

In autopsy, Ducky points out that Cpl. Kean had lost both legs below the knee to a land mine. However, his skull does show blunt force trauma that roughly matches up to the butt of the gun that Ernie Yost claims to have bashed Kean's head in with. It starts to look like Yost did kill Kean.

Yost was telling Tony, Tim, & Kate about the music that him and Wade use to like. Then he asked Kate if she dances and answered yes and he grabs her and starts singing and dancing with her. Tim and Tony were enjoying it along with Kate while dancing with him she started tearing up.

Abby and McGee do a computer simulation of various phases of attack on Iwo Jima. They start with Mount Suribachi, but Gibbs cuts them short and tells them to get on with the specific movements of Yost and Kean and their team. As Abby describes the position where Kean died relative to the position where Yost fought the Japanese off alone, Gibbs takes special note of the locations and realizes something.

Gibbs, with a few tricks up his sleeve and the help of a former Japanese Imperial Army Lieutenant who runs a local sushi shop, helps the Cpl. to remember what happened. In a heartbreaking memory, Kate, the Cpl. and Cmdr. Coleman end in tears. As Yost relives the scene, he gradually recalls that Kean was in severe pain from the mine attack and was whimpering and moaning. Japanese troops were moving nearby, and Kean's voice was putting the entire team at risk. Yost hit him in the head to knock him out so that he would be quiet, saving the rest of the teams' lives.

Watching this, Cmdr. Coleman decides to report to SecNav that "Cpl. Kean was killed in action, not by Yost,"

In my opinion, one of the most touching moments was actually when Cpl. Ernest Yost and the Japanese Lieutenant eat sushi together and the episode ends on them raising their glasses to each other.