The Overview
In 2022, on the one-year anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal that killed 13 American service members, injured dozens, and left hundreds of Afghan nationals dead or wounded, a teaser was released to raise funds for the Abandoned Project, a hard-hitting documentary exposing the Department of Defense’s (DoDs) abusive discharge practices targeting injured active-duty service members.
Original Teaser
The teaser, targeted and censored by social media companies and the mainstream media, limited the messaging and forced producers to rethink their approach. In the three years since the project’s start, more devastating data has emerged, confirming that the problem still persists and that the stakes have grown exponentially higher.
Nathaniel Jesus Cruz
On March 6, 2025, we spent two days in Phoenix, AZ, saying goodbye to one of our soldiers, Nathaniel Jesus Cruz, a 25-year-old who took his own life. He served as a medic with a Special Forces group during a deployment to Afghanistan, where he tried to save a disemboweled 5-year-old child. Ordered to stop helping the child, he watched helplessly as the child died.
Nathaniel developed nightmares and hallucinations of this child and returned to Fort Drum. He began treatment there with heavy medications, which left him lethargic, sluggish, and appearing unresponsive to his NCOs.
They interpreted his demeanor as willful misconduct and malingering, launching a campaign to discharge him without benefits. They harassed, punished, and forced him to work extra duty late into the night, further exacerbating his condition.
We at USJAG took up his case and, after many months, secured his medical retirement and honorable separation. He left an environment of torture, harassment, and humiliation, but the damage was overwhelming and untreatable. He left this world, leaving behind a loving, large Mexican family who are heartbroken and inconsolable.
If America asks our youth to go to war for us, we must accept the consequences and responsibility of that request. They failed him; they injured him again with their abuse.
The Mission
The film, the culmination of 18 years of work by USJAG, a non-profit dedicated to defending the rights of injured service members, aims to reveal how systemic failures in the DoD’s discharge process violate constitutional rights, harm the veteran community, and undermine national security.
The Abandoned Project follows a nationwide journey, featuring interviews with service members affected by these injustices, journalists familiar with the issue, and confidential DoD insiders with firsthand knowledge of the flawed practices. The film delves into the motivations—such as cost-cutting and bureaucratic expediency—and methods behind these practices, highlighting their devastating consequences.
It’s going to break you.
Wounded veteran Kash Alvaro talks about how he has struggled with PTSD since returning from Afghanistan in 2010. He was labeled by his Army unit as a malingerer and thrown out for misconduct.
Hospitalized.
Kash Alvaro was in the emergency room in Colorado Springs on April 26 after having a seizure, blurred vision, and numbness in his leg. Alvaro said his problems started shortly after he was injured by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan in 2009.
“Man up.”
In Fort Carson's Warrior Transition, wounded veteran Jerrald Jensen says he encountered sergeants who had never deployed and treated the wounded harshly.
They are not taking care of us.
Wounded veteran Jerrald Jensen had the lower half of his face shattered by an IED in Iraq. He says soldiers don't have the same workman's compensation rights as everyone else.
The Solution
Issues like homelessness, suicide, opioid addiction, incarceration, divorce, and broken families stem from this flawed system, impacting communities and weakening national security. Yet, there is hope: a simple fix involves third-party oversight of the discharge process to ensure policies are followed and rights are protected.
The producers are jumpstarting the Abandoned Project and urgently need the public’s help to complete it. Despite challenges from censorship, the project remains committed to sparking public outcry and prompting legislative action for reform, giving a voice to injured service members and advocating for their rights, benefits, and dignity.