Perfect Ice

Erik Thorvald grew up in small-town America where his father, Harold, is a university dean. Appearances to the contrary, the Thorvald family of four drifted into a relationship devoid of love and understanding between children and parents despite auspicious early years highlighted by a joyful memory of skating together on perfect ice in a secluded glen. When Erik is drafted and sent to Vietnam in 1969, he reflects on his family's dysfunction during nights of staring into blackness, contrasting with the intensity of combat. When he meets Thuy, a local woman, and falls in love, it's a new dimension to merely surviving. After his army stint and an MBA he returns to Vietnam to marry Thuy and stays on. While doing field work he is captured as a POW and escapes. But with Reunification comes retribution and a re-education camp where Erik's resourcefulness is called upon once more.