Army of One

How to change a broker, a dancer and an unemployed Puerto Rican into members of the world's most sophisticated killing machine – the US military. This is revealed in ARMY OF ONE - a portrait of three young recruits, enlisted by the U.S. army. Post 9/11, Thaddeus, 22, gives up his stockbroker job in Chicago to fight ‘terrorism’. Instead of the ‘action hero’ his recruiter promised he would become, Thaddeus fails to impress his superiors and finds himself cleaning latrines. Disillusioned, he starts questioning the motives for the impending war on Iraq. Sporting a tongue ring and a defiant attitude, Sara, 22, abandons a dead-end career as a dancer in New York City. She joins the army after her father pushes her to enlist, to stop the ‘train wreck her life has become’. Nelson, 19, is a Puerto Rican high-school dropout from the Bronx. His family and friends have written him off, but an army recruiter promises him a chance to turn his life around. Nelson is thrilled to be a member of what he describes as ‘the biggest gang in the world’, but the reality of basic training soon rubs him the wrong way. Shot over two years until this fall, ARMY OF ONE captures the psychological arc of three lost and deeply disenchanted young people, who the US army has seduced to join, but who now question its purpose.