Col. Jessup (Susan Sarandon), an American military nurse, presents a case for a bronze medal with Valor to a military hearing. She tells her story of being taken prisoner in the Phillipines by the Japanese during WWII. Having survived a death march from Bataan Col. Jessup is put into a POW camp run by the enemy. She and her fellow prisoners struggle for survival, working 14 hour days with limited food and no medical supplies. After almost three years the prisoners are liberated by American forces.