After a harrowing 15-month combat tour in Iraq, the much-decorated Adam Schumann returns home to Kansas and a loving wife, Saskia. Adam and Saskia have two young children, a daughter and an infant son born while Adam was still overseas. Adam suffers from PTSD as manifested by nightmares and frequent flashbacks for which his wife convinces him to seek help from an overburdened Department of Veterans Affairs. He also receives solace from two Iraq buddies living nearby, an American Samoan, Solo Aieti, and Billy Waller, who commits suicide in front of his fiancée after discovering she has taken all of his money and their child and left him.