Clayton Pratt grew up in the Leave It to Beaver '50s and woke up in the Jimi Hendrix '60s.  We meet Clayton, AWOL and handcuffed, in a military air terminal in the Philippine Islands.  He left Vietnam on R&R, plagued by recollections of TET, shrapnel, midnight watch, murder and rape.  He went out to get drunk, stay drunk, do drunken things and to blame it all on the drunkenness.

He has a weeping wound on his side.  he has visions of Jesus hanging on the cross above him.  He remembers Tiwala, a mysterious girl, and he assesses his surroundings, his circumstances, and the events that led to his present situation.  War does not end when the bullets stop, he realizes, and it's not the Cong that kill you.  It's not the shrapnel or bullets or napalm that kill you.  War kills you, and it doesn't even know you.

Read excerpts here