American by birth, he grows up in Italy and is conscripted into the Italian army at the onset of the conflicts that led to World War II. He struggles to survive through twelve years of military service in North Africa, Russia, and Italy. As the war ends he is torn between staying near the foothills of the Alps with the woman he has come to know and the family that gave him shelter, or returning home to fulfill family obligations. He returns to his father's devastated lands in Southern Italy where postwar conditions are such that he can only dream of returning to America to seek a better future for his family. Giovanni traveled two long roads. The first one, a two year wartime journey from Ukraine to his home in southern Italy, was a journey of necessity. The other, a forty five year journey of return as an immigrant to America, the country of his birth, was one of choice.