In 1917, as America prepares to enter the First World War, Colonel Nathaniel Ward Hale is asked to brief General John J. Pershing and his senior staff on the realities of modern warfare.

What begins as a discussion about troop readiness and logistics quickly becomes something far darker as Hale attempts to explain the horrifying truth of the Western Front; a battlefield where artillery, machine guns, gas and industrialized warfare consume men by the thousands.

As pressure mounts from the French and British for immediate American reinforcements, Pershing and his officers are forced to confront impossible questions:
How do you prepare boys for a battlefield designed to destroy them?
And how many lives are acceptable to lose in the process?

A story about logistics, sacrifice and the terrifying machinery of modern war.