November 20, 1968 Now I'll have more time. I'm finally out of the shit. The docs say I got hit a week ago, but I don't remember. I woke up in a hospital bed. A nice young doc said, You're lucky, Corporal Divina, you're going home. Nasty, yeah, some muscle damage, but no vital organs. A frag just missed your heart. Doc was wrong.

I don't have a heart, not now, anyway. The others? I asked. He was a nice doc and he looked at me, like maybe that's something I shouldn't have said. You're lucky, he said and turned away. After being wounded in Vietnam, nineteen-year-old Rico Divina is sent home to a string of low-paying jobs and shabby apartments while trying to cope with the demons inside him. As an Indipino (half Yakima, half Filipino), Rico has come up against obstacles all his life - those of race, culture, nationality, and now the experience of war - that have left him without hope. In time he embarks on a course that is self-destructive and increasingly violent. People and situations present themselves, offering him the chance to turn his life around, but Rico, whether from lack of faith or pride, rejects them.

- something he has long suspected he will never have.