Plot Summary:As a sixteen-year-old soldier, Thomas Williams cannot comprehend the violence of the Korean War. When he stumbles upon North Korean soldiers torturing a peasant couple, his duty seems clear. But in an instant his heroic act becomes a picture of unbearable grief. Years later, the memory of war has left Thomas a broken man. Just as he gives up on himself and on his country, he is sent to the dark corner of his soul, where he finds that above death and violence dangles a promise tenuous and fragile as life itself passed down through generations.