This is the story of a platoon that was ambushed in Sadr City, Baghdad on April 4, 2004. This event is known as “Black Sunday.” Our soldiers were trapped for almost 12 hours until, after repeated bloody attempts, they were finally rescued.

The task of the Art Department was to recreate a portion of the city, including specific structures and streets. Everything had to be as realistic and true as possible. Our sets were built at an existing US training facility at Fort Hood, Texas, where we built over 85 buildings and set up more than half a mile of streets. At the time, this was believed to be the largest set in North America.

Ironically, this site, known as Elijah Mout, is where the real soldiers actually trained before shipping off to Iraq in 2004.