Will Stockdale (Andy Griffith) is a garrulous, innocent hillbilly serving in the Air Force. Crotchety Sergeant King (Myron McCormick) takes an instant dislike to Will and determines to make his life miserable. He orders him to clean latrines, telling him their captain is especially fond of clean latrines. Will makes the latrines sparkle but also blurts out King's comments to the captain. Deciding he must get Will out of his squad, King gives him the answers to a classification test, only to have Will mate the answers with the wrong questions. Later Will is presumed lost when his plane flies into an atomic test. At a ceremony awarding him a posthumous medal, Will blithely turns up. He is given a second medal to keep his mouth shut. Based on Mac Hyman's novel, the military comedy was praised by Brooks Atkinson as "ludicrous, intimate and refreshing".