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This ground breaking film tells the stories of seven women who live alongside US military bases in Texas, Puerto Rico, Hawai’i, Guam, the Philippines, South Korea, and Okinawa (Japan). They take us into their homes, walk us through their neighborhoods, and introduce us to their communities. We see how military operations and bloated military budgets have affected their lives as we listen to their experiences and take in their surroundings.

Diana Lopez, a Mexican American teen in San Antonio (TX). She has seen military planes flying over her city all her life and dreams of becoming an Air Force pilot. She learns that a creek flowing from a nearby base is highly polluted and that many of her neighbors have cancer. She begins to question whether the military is the best job option for her…

Zaida Torres, a seamstress in Vieques (Puerto Rico). She has lost several family members to cancer. The US Navy used part of the island as a bombing range for 60 years, and left it reduced to rubble and strewn with bomb fragments and unexploded weapons. Popular protest finally closed the bombing range. Now the challenge is to clean up the debris and contamination and to support the local community, including those with cancer.

Alma Bulawan, a Filipina in her early 50s, leads an organization that creates alternatives for women working in prostitution near the former US Subic Bay Naval Station. In part, her strong leadership comes from the fact that this was her life too…

Yumi Tomita (Pseudonym,) an Okinawan woman in her late 30s. She was raped by US soldiers when she was in high school. It has taken her many years to cope with the shame and trauma of this assault. She finally began to speak of her ordeal in 1995, when a 12-year-old girl was raped also…

Sumi Park, a young Korean social worker. She studied theology in college, then joined the staff of a small organization that provides services to women who work in bars around US bases. As her commitment grows, she sees what it means to put her beliefs at the center of her life…

Lisa Natividad, a professor at the University of Guam, joins other Chamorro community leaders in responding to the news that the military will base 8,000 more Marines (plus support staff and families) on her small Pacific island home...

Terri Keko’olani Raymond, a Hawai’ian activist. Her grandfather was a fire fighter on duty when Japanese planes attacked the US fleet in Pearl Harbor in 1941. This wide harbor, now severely contaminated by the Navy, was once the site of bountiful fishponds that sustained Hawai’ian communities for generations. She works to expose the many impacts of the military in Hawai’i—a side of the islands that visitors rarely see...