Book excerpt: Discover the classic, acclaimed story that continued in the new book Last Flag Flying, now a major motion picture from Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater. In this funny, bawdy, moving novel set during the height of the Vietnam War, two career sailors in Virginia - Billy "Bad-Ass" Buddusky and Mule Mulhall - are assigned to escort eighteen-year-old Larry Meadows to the brig in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where he is to serve an eight-year sentence for petty theft. It's good duty, until the two realize the injustice of the sentence and are oddly affected by the naive innocence of their young prisoner. In the five days allotted for the detail, they decide to show Meadows something of the life he doesn't yet know, to help him survive the long ordeal ahead and to purge their own shame. What follows is an indelible journey of initiation and discovery, filled with beer-soaked wisdom, big city lights, revelry, brawls, debauchery, love, and surprising moments of tenderness.