What if the soldier then gets the magic ability to see by touching a solider in his unit if they will die in Afghanistan and how…and struggles to change fate.

Open with the scene in Vietnam (not Afghanistan) as the P’s life is forever changed when he steps on the mine that doesn’t explode…

The P steps on the plate, but this time, he wears a pair of sleep shorts and the mine is on a street in the crosswalk. He hears a POP as the blasting cap detonates; the asphalt over the plate disappears and is replaced by a black nothingness that the P falls into. He wakes with a start in his bed. Now, thirty years in the future, he’s fifty, no longer the kid in the opening. And so begins 11,000 DAYS LATER.

The P’s luck continued and good things fell into his lap. He’s a multimillionaire who made his money on the web, a beautiful wife, great kids and his dream house on an island. But what he can’t shake is the dream and the memory of the rest of his platoon. So he decides to get in touch with them. He uses Facebook, letters, telephone and then even personally searches for some.

Eventually, he contacts all the living members of that patrol and he pays for a reunion in Las Vegas. Most are regular guys, married or divorced, most have kids; some even have grandkids. But then there’s Alvin. The guy they all made fun of and now the guy who finds them when he sees the announcement in the newspaper about the reunion. The newspaper he slept on…

This is the story of how the P redeems himself for having forced Alvin to take the lead on the patrol that day because he figured his life was more valuable than Alvin’s. If the P hadn’t switched places, Alvin would have been the lucky one.

Mention the word "Iraq" and the face of whomever is sitting across from you will instantly sour.

Kinda reminds me of Jules from PULP FICTION.

This lucky soldier has always evaded death even before the mine. Natural disasters, car accidents, he's survived them all, but he's always lost someone close. So he's become a loner because he doesn't want to chance the loss of anyone else. Until a woman invades his life (not really invades but she's determined to get to know him). He learns to love again, but his cursed of being a "lucky SOB" still lingers.

First thing that came to mind was 'what if the bomb doesn't explode at first, but will explode if the soldier moves off the plate?'. Some kind of war version of Phone Booth, where a man is trapped in the same place and will die if he moves. Perhaps an approaching enemy squad is closing in from the south and will meet up with the immobile soldier in X amount of time, acting as a ticking clock.

@Sydney: Good point. Easy fix. P is part of a domestic federal anti-terrorist group. Same scenario in the U.S.

Or the inciting incident could be anything - from surviving a lightning bolt to being the only one in a hostage situation to make it out alive.

Actually a better story would be him stepping on the mine the entire time. Imagine the intensity -

Hi Scott -
Just wanted to say that your site is awesome! Here I'm snooping around and come upon this GREAT series, what, 18 months later? And it's just as relevant....

Curious if you use songs to inspire story ideas. I've got a couple of ideas brewing with "Sound of Silence" (dates me, I know... but man, their harmonies take my breath away....Whew!)

I also have "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol stuck in my head, but no movie concept yet...

SB

@SBraggie: Absolutely you can use songs and song titles to inspire you to write a movie. You have to be careful not to use the actual specifics of the song's lyrics as that may require you to pursue rights to the song. Other than that, you are free to let your mind roam over your entire songscape. Glad you found the site. 7,000 posts to search through. And I've done A Story Idea Each Day for a Year series twice - and have about 12 stories already for the 2012 edition.