"His name was Rambo, and he was just some nothing kid for all anybody knew, standing by the pump of a gas station on the outskirts of Madison, Kentucky" (Chapter 1, p. 5).

"That was another thing the war had given him. He noticed dead things more. Not in horror. Just in curiosity of how they had come to end" (Chapter 3, p. 12).

"Rambo stayed out walking in the open to make it clear that he was not trying to hide. Teasle could give up the game at this point and leave him alone; if he did not, well then it was Teasle who wanted the trouble, not himself" (Chapter 5, p. 15).

"It was the same jungle camp they had tortured him in, the same thatched huts and rich green mountains. For a reason he did not at first understand, they had treated his wounds while he was unconscious: the slashes in...