Minutemen

A young Marine captain is critically wounded in a desperate firefight with Afghan rebels in the remote, foreboding mountains hundreds of miles from Kabul. As he lays in agony, his face torn to shreds and expecting death at any agonizing moment, he asks himself a desperate question: “What was it all for?”

His platoon defeats the rebels, and he survives. His recovery is slow and excruciating, yet he cannot escape the very existential nature of that question. As he cycles through a string of agonizing operations to put his face back together, he repeats the question, like a mantra. 

On the day the last of his bandages are removed and he sees his torn and scarred face in a mirror for the first time, he is shattered. Later that day, still in shock, he listens to a rambling, incoherent speech by the delusional former President, who has vowed revenge on a country that has “stolen” the election.

He has an epiphany. He realizes that he has survived for a reason, and has been given a fateful gift: to stop this man bent on the destruction of the Republic, and by any means necessary.

As the story unfolds, the country is roiled by a rebellious, autocratic movement to return the former president to power, led by scores of angry citizens, extremist media pundits, and even members of Congress, all  aiming to strike at the very heart of the government: the newly-elected President. 

The captain must take matters into his own hands. By forming a coalition of like-minded citizen soldiers, he and his “shadow militia” swear to defend the Republic at all costs. 

They’ve all fought on foreign soil, against foreign enemies. Now, they must fight their own countrymen to save their homeland.