Billy "Bad-Ass" Buddusky is back! The time is December 2003. He's sixty-something now and is packing a metal plate in his head and an extra thirty pounds, but none of these things have softened his stance on stupidity or damaged his bullsh-- detector.
The tone of the book is set early on. Instead of becoming excited when he hears that Saddam Hussein has just been found, cowering and filthy in a spider hole, Billy simply snorts, saying, "The dude's a punk. Everybody else is supposed to fight to the death. If it was reversed, our guy'd be the same way, hidin' in some hole. ... The risk always goes to somebody else. the sacrifice is always somebody else's, and somebody else's child."
If you're a film buff or a reader, and of a certain age, you will remember Buddusky as the irrepressible anti-hero of the Vietnam era film, The Last Detail, which was adapted from Darryl Ponicsan's 1970 novel of the same name. Since its 1973 release, the gritty anti-war film has assumed the status of cult classic and become a regular part of the curriculum at many film schools.
Detail was Ponicsan's first novel, and he turned out seven more excellent books over the next ten years, and then seemed to just vanish - at least from the literary landscape. This was an enormous disappointment to me. I was teaching college English in the seventies and incorporated Detail into my Intro to Lit courses, to be studied in tandem with Melville's Billy Budd. Invariably, my students preferred Ponicsan to Melville, which came as no surprise - or disappointment - to me. At least they were reading - and enjoying it.
I read all eight of Ponicsan's novels and for years I kept looking for a new one, but there just weren't any, until now.
Last Flag Flying is the totally unexpected sequel to The Last Detail. "Unexpected" for reasons obvious to anyone who read the book or saw the film, but I won't try to explain that here. The fact is, however, this book is every bit as relevant today as Detail was in its own time. In the first story, Buddusky and "Mule" Mulhall were career-type Navy Petty Officers between ships who were detailed as "chasers" to escort Meadows, a young kleptomaniac sailor, from Norfolk to the Naval prison in Portsmouth. New Hampshire, where he'd been sentenced to eight years hard time for stealing forty bucks from a polio fund collection can in the PX. Knowing the kid had been shafted, the two men take pity on their prisoner and try to show him a good time en route to his jail cell. In the process, the lives of all three men are irrevocably changed.
Last Flag Flying brings the same three men together again, 34 years later. Billy now owns a seedy Norfolk bar-and-grill, Mule is a crippled country preacher, and Meadows has a menial job in, of all places, the Portsmouth PX. They are faced this time with a task as grim and tragic as their first. Meadows' son has been killed in Iraq, and he enlists the other two men's aid in bringing the body home. In doing so, the three aging men retrace their path from three decades before - by car, rental truck, taxi and train. Nearly all things shameful, ridiculous and controversial about today's society are skewered along the way: the dishonesty of the current administration, the ineptness of Homeland Security officials, CEO greed and corporate "bottom lines," those elusive weapons of mass destruction, the continued commercialization of Christmas, and even the ubiquitous cell phone culture. Prostate problems, old bowels and diminished sexual powers are also bemoaned and cursed.
There are a number of passages here that will move the reader from chuckles to tears to outright guffaws, sometimes all on the same page.
One of Darryl Ponicsan's greatest assets as a writer has always been his uncanny ear for dialogue. Last Flag Flying is proof that he still has it. I wasn't really too surprised then, when I learned that Ponicsan has been writing film scripts for the past twenty-five years, and making a good living at it too. I am very pleased, however, to find him back between book covers again, and I sincerely hope he keeps on writing.
But here's a tantalizing possibility for you film afficianados. Wouldn't it be great if Hollywood noticed the new book and someone persuaded Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid to reprise their Detail roles of Billy and Meadows? Sadly, Otis Young, who played Mule, is deceased now, but maybe Morgan Freeman, or Danny Glover, say, could be drafted for that part. Pay attention, Tinseltown. Here are some "grumpy old men" who have something important to say. How about a film for adults for a change? ( )

"The Last Flag Flying" is a sequel to Ponicsan's book "The Last Detail." It brings the three characters from "Detail" back, and one of them back to life.

The book picks up 34 years after "Detail," bringing three former sailors back together for an awful purpose: to bury the son of one of the sailors who has been killed in the war in Iraq. "Detail" told the story of two seasoned sailors on chaser duty, bringing a misfit young sailor to the military prison in Portsmouth, NH in the early 1970s. Now, some three decades later, that misfit seeks out the two men who had once before helped him and showed him some kindness, and asks them to accompany him in burying his son, a Marine killed in Iraq.

While it is wonderful to revisit the boisterous Billy "Bad-Ass" Buddusky, the taciturn "Mule" Mulhall (now a preacher) and even the sad sack Larry, it's unfortunate the ends author Ponicsan had to go to in order to bring the narrative about. While the story is poignant and at times comical, the author may be letting a bit too much of himself come through in the characters.

Warts and all, though, it was almost like reading "The Last Detail" for the first time all over again, and that is a real treat. ( )