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.

Cody meets with USMC Sergeant Major Diggins to discuss an upcoming Army-Marine flag football game, and the two make their "usual wager" on the results of the game. In his room, Randy becomes emotional watching military homecoming videos on the Internet.

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 town's annual parade is coming, and Cody asks Jill's troops to march in the parade while placing Pete's team on "doody duty" (clean-up detail). Derrick and the troops seem perfectly happy with this, as it means they only have to work a couple of hours and don't have to do marching practice in the hot sun. But when Pete challenges the gang and asks if they've ever aspired to something greater, they all remember how Derrick was their "dreamcrusher" when they first came to the base, and they turn on him.

Pete tries to get the troops excited about painting duty by suggesting they use his tricked-out golf cart, "Paint Cart 5000". But Pete's contraption is upstaged when his troops are introduced to "Mondo Spider", a robotic attack machine. The troops badly want to be part of the detail testing Mondo Spider, but its access is controlled by Lieutenant Schneeberger, whom Pete has crossed in the past. Meanwhile, Cody insists that Derrick use his photography skills to take a new portrait of him, causing Derrick to miss the Mondo Spider tests.

When a prank war between Pete and Jill's platoons reveals Pete's hidden weakness, Derrick and Randy must help their brother maintain the respect of the platoon. But Jill appears to have the upper hand in every prank. Meanwhile, desk-bound Cody has his hands full dealing with his new, young superior, 2nd LT Schneeberger, a recent West Point grad. When Cody becomes the victim of Pete's prank that was intended for Jill, he gets a chance to put his old soldier skills to work.

Anticipating a visit by a General, Cody pushes Pete to maintain insanely high standards among the Rear D. Meanwhile, Jill gains newfound respect for Randy after she is paired with him to prepare for the inspection.

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.