Off to War - From Rural Arkansas to Iraq

Members of an Arkansas National Guard unit are transformed from weekend warriors to full-fledged soldiers for the war in Iraq.

From the farms and fields of Arkansas to the deadly streets of Baghdad, OFF TO WAR tracks the citizen soldiers of the Arkansas National Guard as they come face to face with the horrors of war. Never before has a unit of soldiers been followed from the beginning to the end of their deployment at war. In April 2004, filmmakers Brent and Craig Renaud arrived in Iraq with the Arkansas National Guard during one of the bloodiest months to date. Within twenty-four hours of their arrival, one of the guardsmen lay dead. By the end of the first month, they had lost more soldiers than any other National Guard Brigade in Iraq From actual scenes of full-scale combat to a soldier's funeral, from the birth of a first child to the heartbreaking return home of a critically injured soldier, Off to War tells the story of a war in a way it has never been told before - through the eyes of the soldiers and families back home who endured it.