U.S. Army Officer, Lieutenant Jared Rye is a battle-hardened warrior. Or at least he thinks he’d like to be. On Christmas Day, 2008, he arrives to war with high hopes of battlefield glory and a lasting legacy, only to be relegated to a Squadron desk job. With the help of his Squadron’s “accidental Chaplain,” a local interpreter bent on leaving for America, a perpetually drunk Russian contract pilot, and his fellow staff officers, Rye navigates a yearlong deployment on a rural outpost in Afghanistan. As he seeks to find meaning in the war, Rye faces oddities and mishaps ranging from an inter-Army mafia of lower enlisted soldiers, to a crippled local boy with a penchant for pornographic doodles, to a two-faced local militant, and an autocratic squadron commander paralyzed by paranoia. Rye’s unlikely friendship with his interpreter becomes the bedrock of his sanity, as he grapples with the reality of America's "Forever War" and his perceived lackluster war experience. But when a series of roadside bombs cripples a resupply convoy, the soldiers of Titan Squadron look to the highest ranking officer remaining and Rye must put his training to the test to lead an assault against an enemy of unknown strength.