Items related to The Second Mile
"The Second Mile" provides a country boy's view of war--a view unlike any seen in literature before. What's it like to go through training camp and strive to hew to the inherent decency of your upbringing? (Book I) What's it like to be caught in a net of sexual circumstances that upbringing has never prepared you for, but your decency knows just what to do about? ("A Lady of Quality") What's it like to return home from war to that same community, knowing things no one else does nor would you want them to? (Book II) Erwin A. Thompson structures three compelling narratives based on vital moral choices.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From the Publisher:
While "The Second Mile" is fictional, the army experience and post-war adjustment of Sergeant Ed Mason have much in common with those of the author, Sergeant Erwin Thompson, who was decorated for heroism in World War II for a dangerous night patrol during which he was filled with shrapnel. The fictional hero and the author also have the same roots, in the work and music of rural Southern Illinois. The author's careful and vivid fictional interprtation of his own experience makes this a historical record of those times and places as well as a good yarn.
From the Author:
"The Second Mile," Matthew 5:41: "And whosoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him, go twain."
This was part of the custom of the country in Christ's time, that a Roman soldier could compel any Jew to carry his burden for a mile. I don't know how these exact distances were determined or what happened when the mile limit was reached. Probably the soldier had to carry his own burden. The idea of this passage is that we should all go beyond the fixed limits of exactly what is required of us in our work, and in our relations with other people. Going beyond this point is often referred to by those who have some Biblical knowledge as "going the second mile."
Ed Mason was that kind of man. He didn't stop being concerned about the forty-eight recruits that were his responsibility to train when they came in off the drill field, or the four corporals who were assigned to help. The human problems involved sometimes out-weighed the military ones.
I have known the drill fields of Camp Fannin with their burning heat and two inches of dust. The flimsy barracks where you would burn up in the day and early evening and nearly freeze by morning certain seasons of the year. I have seen the combat veterans come back shot up and disillusioned, completely outdone with the petty regulations of a training camp.
The romantic part of the story is fiction, and none of the story is intended to be autobiographical, but I did live through some very similar situations.
I hope you will enjoy walking "The Second Mile."
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherPine Hill Press
- Publication date1994
- ISBN 10 0964056100
- ISBN 13 9780964056107
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages250
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