SOURCE: Kolin, Philip C. “Rabe's Streamers.” Explicator 45, no. 1 (fall 1986): 63–4.

In the following essay, Kolin describes Streamers as a coming-of-age story.

The last play in his Vietnam trilogy,¹ David Rabe's Streamers (1976) explores an archetypical theme—the rite of passage into manhood—in the lives of four young soldiers (Billy, Roger, Richie, Carlyle) who are in a period of transition from stateside Army life to Viet Nam combat. The testing ground for these young men is a barracks frequently described as “a home,” “my house,” or a “happy family” where they are to learn the “obligations” of soldiering.² An essential character in their drama of manhood is the father (or father figure); and multiple examples in Streamers underscore Rabe's message about the failure of fatherhood for a Viet Nam generation.³ The sons in the barracks are abused, betrayed, and deserted by fathers who are alcoholic, diseased, self-destructive, and malicious. (Ironically...