Description
Although nearly three decades have passed since Melvin Price returned from Vietnam, he is still haunted by dreams of the war, of his friends dying, of the people he’d killed. Worse, though, are the memories of his return. The country was in a turmoil so severe that somehow the ire turned on the servicemen. Never in America’s history had veterans been treated so poorly. When a band of old hippies protest the conflict in Iran, Mel declares his own war.
It is not a war he wants. But some urge drives him, some pain has been stirred up by the newscasts. The rage Mel brought back with him from Vietnam, the rage that built when a man spit on him and photos of his pals reminded him of the sacrifices made for an ungrateful country, finds an outlet.
He stalks the protestors, kidnapping them from their homes and luring them to locations where he’ll have the advantage. Rather than simply killing them outright, Mel provides each one with a taste of what they missed in Vietnam.
One man is dumped into a foxhole with a gun. If he can keep Mel away for the entire night, he gets to live. Another man becomes a prisoner of war and is kept in a steel trailer until he breaks. A third meets his end in a minefield, a woman is offered half a dozen grenades to use against Mel’s single grenade, and a fourth man is sent into a mine to see what the tunnel rats endured.
With each escapade, Mel’s pain is soothed, at least a little. But the relief never lasts long and soon he is back on the internet hunting through websites and profiles for scraps of information that will lead to the next protestor. The hippies, he finds, are older and grayer but still as single-minded as ever.
Or are they? When Mel meets Diane and Lonnie, a married couple who had been active protestors of the Vietnam War, he spends time with them trying to find the perfect opportunity for vengeance. Lonnie finally tells Mel that Diane’s brother had been in Vietnam. Unable to deal with the horrors he’d seen, he had committed suicide shortly after returning.
Mel realizes that, although their activities had made it more difficult for the soldiers, these two had actually had their hearts in the right place. He leaves them alone, determined to slake his thirst with someone else’s blood. But the nightmares enact Diane and Lonnie’s murders for him.
His mind seems to be filled with twisting passages. Mel knows he is beyond help. As state and Federal law officials tighten the net, he sets a final plan in motion. Troopers, police and FBI agents surround his rural property as the final siege of Mel’s war runs its course. He dies in battle, not fighting any acknowledged war but in a way that will spare his sister the pain of thinking he had committed suicide.
To the locals who knew him and to his family, Mel remains a hero. A cavalry of bikers, most of whom are veterans, pour in from across the nation to attend his funeral. Protests by young peaceniks and ageing hippies shatter the small town in the days leading up to the service. The support of the bikers, and the dignity of the procession arranged by the VFW, triumphs over the worst they can do. In the end, even the lead detectives realize that Mel Price was a true American hero.