My life is storytelling. I believe in stories, in their incredible power to keep people alive, to keep the living alive, and the dead.
I carry the memories of the ghosts of a place called Vietnam - the people of Vietnam, my fellow soldiers.
Unlike Chicago or New York, small-town Minnesota did not allow a man's failings to disappear beneath a veil of numbers. People talked. Secrets did not stay secret.
With no draft, the only people who went to war were those who wanted to, or at least those who wanted to join the military.
The people in 'July, July' do find themselves looking backward, talking to others and to themselves about those over-the-cliff, fork-in-the-road moments in their lives. I imagine this is what must happen at a 30th college reunion.