" Inside the building where activity is bustling and phones ring, young campaign worker Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) is an aide working for Palantine""s election with a modishly long-haired co-worker named Tom (future director Albert Brooks in his feature film debut).] Sergeant Shaw returns home a war-hero from the Korean conflict.His Air Force plane is met at the airport by cheering, patriotic crowds and a band.The narrator in voice-over describes how he is to be decorated as a Congressional Medal of Honor winner:This nation jealously guards its highest award for valor - the Congressional Medal of Honor.Steven retaliated by thrusting a fireplace poker hrough Josh""s back, impaling his heart on itand he crashed through a glass window to the ground below - but soon melted into the grass lawn and disappeared (was he alive or dead?) - presumably alive (as later events unfolded).She hugs a pillow as she reclines on a sofa with her legs extended.Her domineering mother, who forces her daughter to drink a glass of milk, reveals that they are from a poor family that is struggling financially to afford her education, and there""s little possibility that their shares of rising stock in the Stamper oil company may help ("If we sold those stocks, we""d make $15,000 and maybe we can even send you away to college next year.