Gerald Franklin Darnell

Theme of a Blindfold Gerald Franklin Darnell

There is something about a tiger, whether it's a search for meaning and inspiration, or a symbol to stave off destruction of the world. In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, five-year-old Joe Hillman's fascination with a tiger at the St. Louis Zoo, while sirens are blaring in the background, ignites his life's quest--to someday become a soldier. THEME OF A BLINDFOLD is a coming of age tale, presented from opposing military perspectives. Striving for survival of his psyche and soul, amid an absurdly rational world whose technology and logic has given the world the threat of nuclear war that would make the utility of a soldier obsolete, Joe desperately seeks an existence that is primal, instinctual. After of age to join the military, disheartened with some of his initial training, upon his introduction to the Special Forces Qualification Course (Green Beret training) Joe discovers the teacher he has long sought out, a guru of sorts, in the person of his kill-instructor, Colonel Dante. For Colonel Dante, Special Forces training for the recruits--or "neophytes" as he refers to them--is like being initiated into some primitive initiation rite. From the jungles of Rhodesia, to The Berlin Wall, to a crucified village in El Salvador, THEME OF A BLINDFOLD depicts the human soul balanced between terror and ecstasy, as the spirit of the tiger fights to prevail over The Bomb, in the heart of the soldier as much as in the world.