The Bushmen
Every tale leaves a scar.
A new Green Beret joins his team in Afghanistan and is drawn into the violent, absurd, and deeply human world of Special Forces combat, where men become legends — and every tale leaves a scar.
Recognition · 2026
- WRPN.tv Screenplay Competition · Platinum Award
- Austin Film Festival Script Competition · Drama Teleplay Pilot
- INROADS Screenwriting Fellowship
- Alpine International Film Festival · Best Pilot Episode
- Emerging Screenwriters Action & Adventure Screenplay Competition · TV Pilot
- Outstanding Screenplays TV Pilot Competition · TV Pilot
- Hollywood Storytellers Genre Script Competition · TV Pilot, Historical/Biopic
- Military Story Showcase
Available on request
- Pilot script, Ep. 1 “Jalrez”
- Pitch deck
- Series overview
- Master series bible
- Character bible
- Director’s lookbook
- Sonic bible
- Writer bio
Pilot + 4 episodes written · 13 episodes planned
Key Art
Posters and one-sheets · tap to enlarge
“Men, Special Forces is a mistress. Your wives will envy her because she will have your hearts. Your wives will be jealous of her because of the power to pull you away. This mistress will show you things never before seen and experience things never before felt. She will love you, but only a little, seducing you to want more, give more, die for her. She will take you away from the ones you love, and you will hate her for it, but leave her you never will, but if you must, you will miss her, for she has a part of you that will never be returned intact. And in the end, she will leave you for a younger man.”James R. Ward · Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
Not the Myth. The Truth.
The seriesFor twenty years, every portrayal of Special Forces on screen has been sanitized. Hero-worshipped. Politicized. The Bushmen is the corrective — built on nine combat deployments of lived experience, told with the brutal honesty the subject demands.
Generation Kill meets The Bear — unsanitized military realism, intimate character drama, dark humor, and the emotional cost of brotherhood.
Watch the sizzle reel
Real footage · Real operations · Afghanistan, 2013 – 2015 · Opens on Vimeo
Season One
13 episodes · Afghanistan, 2013 – 2015Thirteen episodes. Two deployment cycles. The season opens with a green-on-blue attack at VSO Jalrez — objective camera, no score, just the truth — and ends with Jason on a HLZ at Bagram, coming home.
Green-on-blue attack. Objective camera. No score. Jay arrives, reports to SGM, meets ODA 36. The sandbag throne. The Mason story. The fire pit. He is home.
George Bannar KIA in Wardak. Chuck codes twice, survives. The Shank memorial.
Funeral detail. Lindsey: “Come back to me.” The DUI story. The acid trip.
Abandoned airbase. Chinook insertion. First kill — handled with restraint.
“Fancy” by Iggy Azalea. Wrong-side insertion. Chuck shot. Danger-close 500lb bomb.
RPG ambush. JJ roof circus. The last fist pound with Mikey Cathcart.
Pitch Perfect — last pure lightness. CIB awarding. Civilian casualty. Moral center.
Thanksgiving. Equipment prep ritual. The contact. Blunt force. Sky spinning. Cut to black.
ISR: perfect L-shaped ambush. Airstrike denied. “Get off my fingers.” “Treat yourself.”
Lindsey’s side of the call. Bear-style pressure cooker. Dan calls. Fort Bragg reunion.
Jay’s dissociation at home. The boys still fighting in Nangarhar. “Jay… come back to me.”
Jay absent entirely. Reggie’s baptism by fire with 35. Ray: “Welcome to the show, kid.”
German transit. Bagram HLZ. JJ: “Why so serious?” He is home. He is whole.
Three ODAs. One Medic.
The ensemble
Chaotic, funny, deeply bonded. Dan’s team. Jay’s home. The gravitational center of the series.
Disciplined, lethal, absurdly funny. Chuck’s team. The benchmark Jason measures himself against.
Senior, violent, biker-gang energy. Mark’s team. The reckoning that comes for everyone eventually.
Producer Interest
Virtual Pitch Fest · “Yes” responses- Insignia Entertainment
- Benattar/Thomas Productions
- Unique Features
- Zero Gravity Management
- Mom’s Basement Management
- Visionary Media