Fire to Light: A Memoir of Family, Race, and War

This is the story of a young, white Southerner who is drafted, against his will, into the U. S. Army during the Vietnam conflict, which he opposes. His coming-of-age journey is influenced by his conflicted, yet progressive-minded family as he grows up in a small town in North Carolina during the reign of Jim Crow in the American South. His instinctive sense of social justice guides him during tense racial moments as a kid on the beach, through the desegregation of his high school, and as a soldier in the Army. He is also challenged by having to adapt from his easy civilian life to the rigors of the military, where he learns that his truth may not be the only truth. Ultimately, he is sent to Vietnam where he finds his way, not through the jungles, but through the streets of wild and wooly Saigon—a place of crazy traffic, drugs, women, music, graft, and tensions among the troops as America’s role in the war is winding down. Through all this, he gains an enriched respect for and greater understanding of the human condition.