Staff Sergeant Pete Hill is sent home from Afghanistan for assaulting a superior and is forced to return to the US. Upon his return, he is made the platoon sergeant of a group of misfits at Florida-based Fort McGee that includes his two younger brothers, Derrick and Randy. Pete's sergeant major, Command Sergeant Major Cody, gives his platoon the task of finding a lost dog that belongs to the family of a deployed soldier. Pete's platoon is moments away from winning a war games exercise against a group of Italian troops when the dog is spotted in the battlefield, causing Pete to choose between winning the war games or rescuing the dog.

Pete and his unit offer to do home improvements for an obnoxious father (Andrew Daly) and his reclusive son (Drew Justice) while their wife/mother is deployed. As the projects become more challenging and the father more irritating, Derrick fears Pete's legendary temper will surface, but Pete gets through it by using a technique he learned in Afghanistan called "embracing the suck." All goes well and the projects are finished, but Pete loses it when the father says Pete and his troops are "not real soldiers." In the end, Randy figures out a way for the father to connect with his son. Meanwhile, Jill thinks Cody is taking her out for coffee to talk about her request for enrollment in the Advanced Leader Course, but he just uses her to help spy on his teenage daughter.

The Hill brothers celebrate Pete's one year anniversary of almost dying in Afghanistan, otherwise known as his "Alive Day." After the funding has been cut for the annual ball, which was going to honor Major Cody, Pete enlists the platoon to create their own ball to honor him.