In 1993, following the ousting of the central government and start of a civil war, a major United Nations military operation in Somalia is authorized with a peacekeeping mandate. After the bulk of the peacekeepers are withdrawn, the Mogadishu-based militia loyal to Mohamed Farrah Aidid have declared war on the remaining UN personnel. In response, U.S. Army Rangers, Delta Force counter-terrorist operators, and 160th SOAR aviators are deployed to Mogadishu to capture Aidid, who has proclaimed himself president of the country.
Callow, rich Ensign Willis Seward Keith (Robert Francis), reports for his first assignment aboard the Caine, which is homeported in Pearl Harbor. "Willie", as he is known by his fellow officers, is disappointed to find that the Caine is a small, battle-scarred destroyer-minesweeper. Its gruff captain, Lieutenant Commander William H. DeVriess (Tom Tully), has almost completely given up on discipline, and the crew has become slovenly and superficially undisciplined, although their performance is excellent. Keith has already met the executive officer, Lieutenant Stephen Maryk (Van Johnson), and is introduced to the communications officer, Lieutenant Thomas Keefer (Fred MacMurray), a novelist in civilian life. Keith has an opportunity to transfer from the ship to a more glamorous billet as an Admiral's aide, but decides to stay aboard. However, Keith remains frustrated with the ship's lack of discipline, despite his own shortcomings.
In 1949, former U.S. Army Air Force officer Harvey Stovall (Dean Jagger) is vacationing in Great Britain when he spots a familiar Toby Jug in an antique shop window and is told that it came from Archbury, where Stovall served with the 918th Bomb Group during World War II. Convinced that it is the same jug, he buys it and journeys to the now-abandoned airfield.
U.S. Army Private Witt (Jim Caviezel) goes AWOL from his unit and lives among the easy-going and seemingly carefree Melanesian natives in the South Pacific. He is found and imprisoned on a troop carrier by his company First Sergeant, Welsh (Sean Penn), who notices Witt's indifference to the war. The men of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division have been brought to Guadalcanal as reinforcements in the campaign to secure Henderson Field and seize the island from the Japanese. As they wait in the holds of a Navy transport, they contemplate their lives and the impending invasion. On deck, battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte) talks with his commanding officer, Brigadier General Quintard (John Travolta) about the invasion and its importance. Tall's voice-over reveals that he has been passed over for promotion and this battle may be his last chance to command a victorious operation.
In 1941, bugler and career soldier Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) transfers to a rifle company at Schofield Barracks on the island of Oahu. Captain Dana "Dynamite" Holmes (Philip Ober) has heard he is a talented middleweight boxer and wants him to join his regimental team in order to secure a promotion. Prewitt refuses, having stopped fighting because he blinded his sparring partner and close friend over a year before. Holmes is adamant, but so is Prewitt.
In the waning days of World War II, the United States Navy cargo ship Reluctant and her crew are stationed in the "backwater" areas of the Pacific Ocean. The executive officer/cargo chief, Lieutenant Junior Grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts (Henry Fonda), tries to shield the dispirited crew from the harsh and unpopular captain, Lieutenant Commander Morton (James Cagney). Eager to join the fighting, Roberts repeatedly requests a transfer. Morton is forced by regulation to forward his requests, but refuses to endorse them, which means they are always rejected. Roberts shares quarters with Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver (Jack Lemmon). Pulver spends most of his time idling in his bunk and avoids the captain at all costs, so much so that Morton is actually unaware that the ensign is even part of the crew.
Sir No Sir! tells the story of the 1960s GI movement against the war in Vietnam for the first time on film. The film explores the profound impact that the movement had on the war and investigates the way in which the GI Movement has been erased from public memory. In the 1960’s an anti-war movement emerged that altered the course of history. This movement didn’t take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on aircraft carriers. It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs and in the dingy towns that surround military bases. It penetrated elite military colleges like West Point. And it spread throughout the battlefields of Vietnam. It was a movement no one expected, least of all those in it. Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile. And by 1971 it had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services. Yet today few people know about the GI Movement against the war in Vietnam.
In Afghanistan, Taliban leader Ahmad Shah is responsible for killing over twenty United States Marines, as well as villagers and refugees who were aiding American forces. In response to these killings, a United States Navy SEALs unit is ordered to execute a counter-insurgent mission to capture Shah. As part of the mission, a four-man SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team is tasked with locating Shah. These four SEALs include team leader Michael P. "Murph" Murphy; snipers Marcus Luttrell and Matthew "Axe" Axelson; and communications specialist Danny Dietz.
In 1984, Soviet submarine Captain First Rank Marko Ramius (Connery) commands Red October, a new Typhoon-class nuclear sub featuring a caterpillar drive, rendering it undetectable to passive sonar. Ramius leaves port on orders to conduct exercises with the V.K. Konovalov, commanded by his former student Captain Tupolev (Skarsgård). Once at sea, Ramius kills political officer Ivan Putin (Firth), and commands the crew to head toward America's east coast to conduct missile drills.
The Hurt Locker opens with a quotation from War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, a best-selling 2002 book by Chris Hedges, a New York Times war correspondent and journalist: "The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug."
In 1941, the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Sō Yamamura) and his predecessor, Zengo Yoshida (Junya Usami), discuss America's embargo that starves Japan of raw materials. While both agree that a war with the United States would be a complete disaster, army hotheads and politicians push through an alliance with Germany and start planning for war. With the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto orders the planning of a preventive strike, believing Japan's only hope is to annihilate the American Pacific fleet at the outset of hostilities.
In 1926, Machinist's Mate First Class Jake Holman transfers to the Yangtze River Patrol gunboat USS San Pablo. The ship is nicknamed the "Sand Pebble" and its sailors "Sand Pebbles".
U.S. Navy petty officers Billy "Badass" Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and Richard "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young), are awaiting orders in Norfolk, Virginia when they are assigned a shore patrol detail escorting young sailor, Seaman Larry Meadows (Randy Quaid), to Portsmouth Naval Prison near Kittery, Maine. Meadows has drawn a stiff eight-year sentence for the petty crime of trying to steal $40 from a collection box of his Commanding Officer's wife's favorite charity. Despite their initial resentment of the detail, the oddly likeable Meadows begins to grow on the two Navy "lifers" as they escort him on a train ride through the wintry north-eastern states; particularly as they know what the Marine guards are like at Portsmouth and the grim reality facing their young prisoner. As the pair begin to feel sorry for Meadows and the youthful experiences he will lose being incarcerated, they decide to show him a good time before delivering him to the authorities.
Will Stockdale (Andy Griffith) is a backward, backwoods rube from outside Callville, Georgia who may or may not be smarter than he looks. Accused by Mr. McKinney (Dub Taylor) the head of the draft board of being a draft dodger, it turns out that Stockdale's draft notices have been hidden from him by his father, who doesn't want the boy to leave home and be ridiculed. His father tells Will to be careful going to big cities like Macon and Atlanta. Pa Stockdale says he has been to those cities many years before and he was ridiculed.
The film follows the 2nd Platoon of Battle Company on a 15-month deployment in the Korengal Valley of northeast Afghanistan in the Nuristan area. The Korengal flows north to the Pech, which then flows east to the Kunar River valley on the border with Pakistan. The film chronicles the lives of the men from their deployment to the time of their return home. The Korengal Valley was at the time regarded as "the deadliest place on Earth" (as stated in the documentary itself, trailers, and television commercials on the National Geographic Channel). The goal of the deployment was to clear the Korengal Valley of insurgency and gain the trust of the local populace.