It was written and directed by Luke Moran, who co-stars alongside Sean Astin, Omid Abtahi, Sara Paxton, and John Heard.

[1] The film starts in 2003, the day before 22-year-old Jack Farmer (Luke Moran) ships out for Iraq, having joined the Army Reserves in hopes of being part of something bigger than himself.

Hayes (Scott Patterson) greets them with a rousing speech about them standing on the front lines of the war against terrorism, but the poor living conditions and boredom begin to wear on the soldiers.

Jack requests MP duty, undaunted by the cautionary tale of an earlier volunteer who had the same idea and wound up shooting himself in the foot to escape.

Tanner (Sean Astin), tells him that the Hard Site's guiding principle is "no compassion"; their job is to "soften up" prisoners for military interrogators.

After returning home to the US, Jack sees the news coverage of the Abu Graib scandal breaking on live TV, with the pictures snapped of him as he is shopping at a local store with his girlfriend.