Three ex-Navy men reunite after thirty-four years on a solemn mission in this "irreverent [yet] poignant" novel by the author of The Last Detail (Booklist).
Years ago during the Vietnam War, career sailors Billy Bad-Ass Buddusky and Mule Mulhall were assigned to escort a young seaman named Meadows, convicted of petty theft, from Norfolk to the naval prison in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The journey did not go as planned, to say the least. Now a middle-aged Meadows has sought out his former captors in their civilian lives to help him bury his son, a Marine killed in Iraq, in Arlington National Cemetery.
When he learns that the authorities have told him a lie about the circumstances of his son's death, he decides, with the help of the two others, to transport him home to Portsmouth. And so begins another journey, centered around a solemn mission but at the same time a protest against injustice and a celebration of life—at once irreverent, funny, profane, and deeply moving.
From the acclaimed author of The Last Detail, an award-winning screenwriter and Navy veteran, Last Flag Flying was made into a film directed by Richard Linklater and starring Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, and Laurence Fishburne.
"An accomplished writer with a sure storyteller's touch." —St. Louis Post Dispatch