The glowing campfire was irresistible to his wandering spirit. He had taken many roads, many paths since he had left the war in Vietnam. Each path, each road had taught him something, but still he was nagged by the enormity of what he had experienced. The words that fl owed on occasion, the silence that filled the moments in between never seemed to reveal the essence of the truth he sought. But this night in restless sleep, the sleeper went beyond dream into a subtle dimension of reality.
He came upon a Native American man sitting by the fire, smoking his pipe. The man called out to him to come and sit by the fire. He said his name was Warrior, and that the sleeper was not there by accident. This was the beginning of the author's journey out of the shadow of Vietnam.
As a Marine Corps veteran of an unpopular and divisive war, Carl Hitchens contends that Sitting with Warrior chronicles not only his journey, but America's as well. By sitting and listening to Warrior's wisdom, he has recovered lost parts of himself. This gives America hope for stepping out of the long shadow of Vietnam that today stretches over Iraq and Afghanistan. Hope that by sitting with Warrior and his unifying truth, America can heal her old wounds. Hope that she can draw from her pluralism and diversity unity rather than division-"out of many, one."