the STORY
Justin Sharratt grew up in a strong multi-generational coal-mining family. He was a uniquely American, blue-haired, dirt-bike pushing teenager with a wickedly ironic sense of humor. He was SEVENTEEN when AL QAEDA TERRORISTS attacked America on 9.11.01. Still in high school, he early-enlisted in the USMC, driven by a sense of DUTY and HONOR.
Sharratt’s Squad and Platoon trained together for two years before being deployed to Iraq. They were closer than brothers.
They would all be tested to the limit, and many of them killed or wounded in the 21st CENTURY SAVAGERY of the fight to drive Al Quaeda from Fallujah; a fight won at CLOSE QUARTERS by the rifle, the grenade, the pistol, the knife and the courage of the Marine behind them.
Al Queda owned Fallujah. They turned the city into thousands of Kill-Zones. Fueled by drugs, they fought with one mission, KILL AMERICANS. No rules, no prisoners, KILL OR BE KILLED.
Fallujah was forty-seven straight days of street-to-street, house-to-house, room-to-room, hand-to hand combat.
Sharratt’s unit was the tip-of-the-spear. He fought inside the HELL HOUSE, a fight so intense that it has become LEGEND.
The following day, a known AQ propagandist STAGES THE BODIES to look like they had been executed. He sends pics to a member of the US MEDIA, who runs the story without
talking to the Marines.
SHARRATT IS CHARGED WITH HOMICIDE.
BACK HOME, after Fallujah, Sharratt re-connects, talks a bit with his sister about the war, and parties hard with high-school friends. But subtle cracks show, a reflex trigger pull, a far-away stare.
Sharratt ships BACK TO IRAQ to combat. In an intense, terrifying sequence, Sharratt moves to clear a house. His weapon jams just as an AQ Fighter's AK-47 misfires inches from his face. Sharratt rolls out, pull his sidearm, rolls back in and KILLS THE AQ FIGHTER and three other armed AQ Fighters in the small house.
Sharratt is brought back to the States. He faces LIFE IN PRISON. The media condemn him as a ‘COLD-BLOODED MURDERER’. His family stand by him. the ordeal tears them up.
Justin can’t defend himself. In a powerful, dramatic, combative and high-tension trial, he must rely on Griffin, a sharp, pugnacious, legal warrior, to defeat the lies, dig out the truth,
save him from a life behind bars and prove his innocence.
Justin is fully exonerated, but the damage has been done. He leaves the Marine Corps and tries to build a new life.
BACK AT HOME, drinking hard, out-of-shape, resisting help, chasing the wrong things, but still a fighter, Sharratt rides the whirlpool to the bottom. He never loses his sense of humor, his zero-tolerance for bullshit or his habit of helping any stranger who needs it. His family’s quiet, constant love, and his inherent sense of HONOR and COURAGE bring him back.
Finally out of the darkness and moving forward with purpose, he is rocked by the sudden SUICIDE of one of his closest
COMBAT BROTHERS. Then an opportunistic web-caster, looking to make a name, starts to dog him and the other
Marines, trying to RESURRECT THE FALSE ACCUSATIONS.
Still, Sharratt walks in the light, planning his future and working the plan…until, that day when, without any signaling, without any warning, he takes his own life.