A group of Afghanistan veterans struggle to find meaning from their sacrifices in a war that doesn't end when they come back home.'
First-time filmmaker Stephen Canty, a former Corporal in 1st Battalion, Sixth Marines experienced constant brushes with death during Operation Moshtarak in Marjah, Afghanistan. His unit, Charlie Company, was engaged in some of the heaviest fighting during one of the largest operations of the conflict in Afghanistan. The Marines, some of whom joined the service as young as seventeen, soon became accustomed to both the adrenaline rush and the constant anxiety of combat in hostile territory, along with the imminent strangeness of a world where it seemed that anyone could die at any time.Returning home, the Marines found that the most difficult aspect of the experience was communication. Members of the company soon found themselves isolated from many members of the civilian population, unable (or unwilling) to present honest accounts of their experience to those who could not understand.Following the death of another comrade that straddled the line between accident and suicide, Canty set out with little more than a camera and a belief in the power of film to capture the unfiltered honesty of a group of young men tired of being thanked for their service.ONCE A MARINE is a record of the raw, unfiltered truths of those who have seen war and returned, even if some part of them could never leave.ONCE A MARINE represents years of effort to give voice to those who may once have believed that no one in the civilian population would listen, and sends an urgent and honest message from the people who would know best.
