At a restaurant in Spain in 1962, U.S. marine fighter pilots celebrate their victory over the navy in an aerial contest, and throw a going-away party for Lt. Col. Bull “The Great Santini” Meechum. Soon, a navy captain orders the squadron to leave the premises over making excessive noise. Bull pretends to cooperate, then gropes the navy captain’s wife as he spins her around in a dance. He releases her, and then simulates vomiting on some musicians by squirting the contents of a Campbell’s soup can on the floor. When several of Bull’s fellow soldiers eat the “vomit” with spoons, Bull clears out the restaurant. Back in Atlanta, Georgia, Bull returns home to his family. There, his wife, Lillian, congratulates him on his promotion, and they make love. When Bull’s alarm clock rings at 3:00 a.m., he rouses his children for moving day, despite Lillian’s protests. With their station wagon piled high with suitcases, the family sings patriotic songs on the road at Bull’s insistence. Later, Bull wakes his oldest son, Ben, to talk about sports. Ben wonders aloud what might happen if he changed his mind about becoming a marine. However, Bull is only half listening. He says Ben can attend a four-year college first, but he is most certainly going into the Marine Corps. When Ben asks his father if he would like to die in combat, Bulls responds that it would beat dying of hemorrhoids. The Meechums arrive in Beaufort, South Carolina, and the children are unimpressed with their new town. When Bull reports to Col. Virgil Hedgepath, the officer warns him not to try any more stunts like those in the Spanish restaurant. Soon, Col. Varney, his commanding officer, criticizes Bull for being an alcoholic and a disgrace to the Corps, but he wants Bull to get the other pilots trained for a potential conflict with Cuba. Col. Varney warns Bull that if he screws up, it will end his career. At home, Bull addresses his children like soldiers, demands breakfast, and trades punches with Arrabelle Smalls, the new maid. Later, Ben and Bull play one-on-one basketball, while the rest of the family watches. When the score is two to one in Ben’s favor, Bull cheats. Ben retaliates by excessively dribbling the ball, tiring his father, then scoring. When Ben wins by one basket, Bull is a sore loser. He snaps at his daughter, Mary Ann, insults his wife, and demands that Ben score yet another point to win. When Ben refuses to play, Bull follows his son inside the house, taunting him and bouncing the basketball off his head. At night, Ben peers out his window, and sees his father shooting baskets in the rain. Soon, Ben confesses to his mother that he prays for another war so his father can fight a real enemy. Lillian insists that Bull loves Ben, but the boy is not convinced. Lillian denies that Bull abuses her, and believes that his behavior toward his children is designed to make them tough, and the best they can be. However, Ben is tired of the punches, kicks, and verbal abuse. According to Lillian, Bull knows that he now needs to practice if he wants to beat Ben. Lillian says it is Bull’s way of apologizing, and he would not do it for anyone else. One day, Arrabelle Smalls’s son, Toomer, a beekeeper, invites Ben to go salt-water fishing. Along the way, Red Pettus, the town bully, taunts Toomer about his stuttering. Toomer ignores him, and tells Ben that Red is a racist. At the Smalls converted school bus home near the river, Ben cautiously befriends Gray, the meanest of Toomer’s sixteen dogs. They spend the day on the river, and camp out under the stars. Sometime later, Bull wakes Ben at 4:00 a.m. to give him a birthday present. The gift is Bull’s leather WWII flight jacket, and it fits Ben perfectly. He is thrilled, and Bull swells with pride as he relives the day Ben was born eighteen years ago. One day, Bull is nervous and irritable before Ben’s home varsity basketball game against a strong opposing team. He appears in the locker room after a few drinks at the officers’ club, and demands the team score forty points. During the game, Bull rejoices over every point Ben scores. It is a tight contest, and Bull is angry when the referee misses fouls caused by Abbot, Ben’s rival. When Abbot causes Ben to fall, Bull rushes to the court, and instructs his son to injure the other player or not to come home. Ben misses two free throws and Bull runs down the sidelines, coaching his son. Ben is rattled, and, by mistake, passes the ball to Abbot, who misses the basket as Ben plows into him. Pandemonium breaks out when Abbot crumples to the ground, and the crowd races on court. In the locker room, coach Spinks tells Ben that Abbot has a broken arm. He says Bull’s behavior was wrong, and Ben is a coward for not fighting his father. One day, after Red Pettus bullies Toomer, and destroys his jars of honey, Toomer retaliates and grabs Red by the throat. Later, Arrabelle asks Ben to rescue Toomer when word gets out that Red and his gang are looking for revenge. Ben telephones his father about the situation, but Bull forbids him to get involved. As Red and his gang approach the house, Toomer stages a bee attack. The gang drives away, but Red returns after jumping in the lake to escape the bees. Red shoots Toomer’s favorite dog, then wounds Toomer. Although Red apologizes for hitting him by accident, Toomer releases his other dogs, and they kill Red. Soon, Ben carries Toomer to the car, but he dies. Bull arrives and screams at Ben for disobeying his orders. Ben’s justification is that he tried to follow his father’s example. Bull then realizes that Toomer is dead, and tells his son to take him to the hospital. When Bull wants to know why Ben did not explain the situation sooner, Ben confesses that it is impossible to communicate with him. Later at the officers’ club, Col. Virgil Hedgepath comments that Ben’s actions were heroic, but Bull only thinks about himself. He responds that it is tough being a warrior when there is no war to fight. Later, Bull and Lillian have a physical fight that wakes the children. They run to the kitchen and break up the battle. Reluctantly, Ben searches for Bull at his mother’s request, and finds him collapsed under a tree. He listens as his father’s mutterings dissolve into tears. Bull runs away when Ben says that he loves him. However, the son grabs his father, and takes him home. Sometime later, Ben and Mary Ann attend their high school prom, while Bull’s airplane catches fire during a test flight. In the morning, Colonels Varney and Hedgepath arrive at the Meechum home to inform Lillian of Bull’s death. Soon, Lillian instructs her children not to cry at the funeral. Later, Ben confesses that he often prayed for his father’s plane to crash so he could be free. Lillian comforts her son, telling him that he became free the night he helped Toomer. At the funeral, Col. Hedgepath eulogizes Bull, saying that he died because he stayed with his plane. Later, the Meechum family packs their belongings, and leaves town in their station wagon at 3:00 a.m. just as Bull would have done, singing patriotic songs.