A Thirst for Revenge

Llewellyn Lawrence watches as his friend Charlie is humiliated and physically assaulted by members of the school’s football team. Knowing he cannot stop the assault, he turns to the teacher for help, only to be told the boys are only having some fun. Lawrence knows the teacher is afraid of the thugs and will not help stop the assault. The thirst for revenge runs deep in Llewellyn Lawrence’s soul. It is not just the rage he feels over his friend’s assault. He is still bitter over the confrontation he had with his father over his mother’s death. The father and the son have become distant. They once hunted and camped in the Upstate Pennsylvania game lands. Both know how to survive and kill within the forests. But what will happen when the hunters leave the forest? Llewellyn Lawrence is one of 1,728,344 high school graduates drafted and sent to Vietnam. 17,725 of those graduates were killed. Assigned to the Corps of Engineers, he works with Vietnamese civilians helping improve the villages and solving health problems. Then Mai Lai explodes in front of him and his life changes forever. The horror of the war reaches unthinkable levels. The rage Llewellyn feels toward his country can no longer be held inside him. He becomes a turncoat, fighting with the Viet Cong. He becomes part of the Quyen family, telling his new family, “it is better to die in heaven’s fields, then ignore the abortion called America!” He is thousands of miles away living a new life when he learns that his wife, his former French teacher, is now pregnant.