Shades of Darkness

"My mother had tried to run me down and then threatened to shoot me, a stranger tried to seduce me at a urinal, and now this guy was acting like a child with a rag doll. Was there something about being blind that made me a target for crazy people?" This is the story of a black soldier's journey through Vietnam, blindness, and back. Unforgettably funny, risqué, bittersweet, and inspiring, a memoir of growing up black in rural Maryland, joining the Army at age 17, posted to Korea, then Germany, and finally Vietnam in 1966 where the author was wounded and blinded by a landmine and had to learn to live with blindness, and overcome life's obstacles with determination, humor, and humility. A touching, funny, sexy memoir about both the African American experience and learning to live on the other side of darkness.