Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk movie pictures from Ang Lee

The country is ready to meet Private Billy Lynn.

In the first look of Oscar-winning director Ang Lee’s newest film Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Billy (newcomer Joe Alwynn) is welcomed home from Iraq as a hero in the wake of a firefight. Surrounded by the Alabama State Marching Hornets and cheerleaders, smack dab at the 50-yard line of a Thanksgiving football game, Billy doesn’t look fully prepared for his moment.

But there’s more to the 19-year-old and Bravo Squad’s story, which is revealed through flashbacks leading up to the mid-game celebration.

“Billy Lynn is a story of love, courage, and devotion,” Lee said in a statement. “It’s the story of a young man learning his place in the world, and of the special brotherhood among men at arms, the depths of their bonds, and the sacrifices they make.”

Lee’s movie is an adaptation of Ben Fountain’s debut novel of the same name. The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and landed in EW’s top 10 books of 2012.

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To complement his robust cast — which features Vin Diesel, Steve Martin, Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, and Garrett Hedlund — Billy Lynn was shot with a very high frame rate and screened scenes at 120 fps during last month’s CinemaCon.

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk opens on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.