Marshall Ospina interviews Paul Maney who served during the Vietnam War. He describes his time in Basic Training as very dark and disturbing. He was trained in Fort Dix, but never deployed, and spent most of his time doing administrative work in Colorado. He did not like serving in the military and got out as soon as he could. He used the GI Bill to go to school and eventually became a professor of military history.

Haimes Kilgore, interviewed by Judkin Browning, enlisted in the Mississippi National Guard at age 17. He was deployed into combat twice, the first time during Operation Desert Storm and the second time to Saudi Arabia, and speaks of his experiences.

Greg Boyd, Army and Army National Guard, was born in 1961 and joined the armory at age 17 as an E-2. He discusses meeting his wife while in service, family, training, and deployments to Honduras and Ecuador as well as domestic deployments.