Michael R. Butner Tour of Duty

Annotation

In 1967, a Boeing 707 filled with United States Marines roars off the Alaskan runway and heads for Vietnam. As Mitchell Rice looks out the planes window, he wonders if this will be his last glimpse of home. What Rice does not know is that he has just left a normal life behind forever.Twelve thousand miles later, entrenched in the jungles of Vietnam; Rice is assigned to a two-man sniper unit. After North Vietnamese attackers kill his partner, Rice goes on a vengeful killing spree, sending eighty VMAs to their graves. Rice is ultimately injured and airlifted to a hospital where he meets three special women who each try to make him whole once again. Eventually discharged from the Marines, Mitch continues to grapple with the internal demons created by the battlefield atrocities he witnessed. Even as a civilian medical student called upon to execute a short mission during the 1972 Olympic Games, Rice still struggles to find his self-worth.Decades later, after Mitch has developed a medical practice in Oklahoma, he is called back to the military and must perform one final international assignment that threatens to destroy the very life he has worked so hard to recreate.