Yemen, 1996. Marine Colonel Terry Childers and a squad of Marines are tasked with evacuating the U.S. ambassador and his family as an Islamist demonstration outside the U.S. embassy quickly spirals out of control. Soon the most radical demonstrators begin shelling the embassy, and Childers' squad comes under fire and suffers casualties. Childers orders the crowd to return fire, resulting in the death of 83 demonstrators and a large number of seriously wounded, among them women and children. An international scandal erupts, and Bill Sokal, the U.S. President's National Security Advisor, decides to pin all the dogs on Childers to cover the rear. Upon arrival, the colonel is accused of wrongfully killing civilians and will now be tried by a military tribunal. Childers asks old friend and battle buddy Colonel Hayes Hodges to be his lawyer. Hayes, who is already retired, cannot refuse Terry, since he saved his life in Vietnam in 1968.