In his barracks, Walter Burke is trying to write a letter to the parents of a fallen soldier, an Alabama man who died in a muddy rice paddy. But all he can think of is his childhood friend Lamar, the friend with whom he first experienced the fury of violence, on the streets of Birmingham, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The juxtaposition is so powerful--between war-torn Vietnam and terror-filled "Bombingham"--that he is drawn back to the summer that would see his transition from childish wonder at the world to his certain knowledge of his place in it. Walter and Lamar were...
In his barracks, Walter Burke is trying to write a letter to the parents of a fallen soldier, an Alabama man who died in a muddy rice paddy. But all h...
