In an interview with Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey said the film is dedicated to her father, Donald Fey, who died during filming. Fey has since set up a scholarship fund for veterans who want to study journalism.
In a February 2016 interview with NPR, Kim Barker, who wrote "The Taliban Shuffle", the book that was the basis for this movie, said Tina Fey first became interested in the memoir when Michiko Kakutani reviewed the book for the New York Times. Kakutani said Barker "depicts herself as a sort of Tina Fey character."
The film's title is military phonetic alphabet for, and a humorous allusion to, the abbreviation "WTF".
Martin Freeman's character Iain MacKelpie wears a green Celtic FC scarf throughout the first half of the film. Celtic FC are a Scottish football club. Martin Freeman is an English actor playing a Scot. England and Scotland's football (soccer) rivalry dates back to the late 1800s.