Kunar and Nuristan, two mountainous provinces on Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, have seen fighting for eleven straight years, and filmmaker John D McHugh embeds with the US 25th Infantry Division as it tries to hold ground there. The camera follows soldiers on patrol through icy terrain, back in a region American forces once abandoned: they pulled out of Nuristan in 2009, the Taliban retook it, and now units are returning to try to reassert control and win over local villagers before a planned 2014 withdrawal. The footage sits against the wider political backdrop of the period, President Obama's withdrawal pledge and the Taliban's announcement of a political office in Qatar, while General John Allen voices doubts on camera about whether a full pullout by 2014 is realistic. McHugh doesn't resolve the contradiction; he just shows the fighting continuing regardless of the diplomacy happening elsewhere. Framed as the first in a series of occasional field reports, the film treats Kunar and Nuristan as a test case for whether either side, American or Taliban, can actually finish what eleven years of fighting started.