conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a description for a book titled The Nuclear Age about Vietnam, William, Combat with the genre: Humor & Entertainment, Humor.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: In 1969, 22-year-old the author was drafted and eventually sent to Vietnam. In a memoir, <a href="/exec/obidos/ASIN/0440343119/${0}"><I>If I Die in a Combat Zone</I></a> and two works of fiction--<a href="/exec/obidos/ASIN/0385283490/${0}"><I>Going After Cacciato</I></a> and <a href="/exec/obidos/ASIN/014014773X/${0}"><I>The Things They Carried</I></a>--he revisited the war, crafting gut-wrenching tales of terror, death, and futility among the rice paddies and jungles of Southeast Asia. In <I>The Nuclear Age</I> the author explores the road not taken: his hero, William Cowling, avoided the draft and spent the 1960s, instead, in a welter of antiwar radicalism. But soon one begins to wonder how different life in the underground, with its strange mix of idealistic visionaries and glory-seeking psychotics, really is from the battlefields of Vietnam. Enlisted in the ranks of an antiwar paramilitary organization in Florida, William remarks to his radical girlfriend Sarah that the group is "like a death squad. Can't tell the good guys from the bad guys, they're all gunslingers. Completely scrambled. But it's lethal. I know that much, it'll kill somebody." Nevertheless, he sticks it out in a noncombatant capacity and resurfaces several years later at the end of the war as a profitable trader in uranium.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Nuclear Age
  It's after midnight, and I kiss my wife's cheek and quietly slide out of bed. No lights, no alarm. Blue jeans and work boots and a flannel shirt, then out to the backyard. I pick a spot near the tool shed. A crackpot? Maybe, maybe not, but listen. The sound of physics. The soft, breathless whir of Now.
  Close your eyes, pay attention: Murder, wouldn't you say? A purring electron? Photons, protons? Yes, and the steady hum of a balanced equation.
  I use a garden spade. High over the Sweetheart Mountains, a pale dwarf moon gives light to work by, and the air is chilly, and there is the feel of a dream that may last forever. "So do it," I murmur, and I begin digging.
  Turn the first spadeful. Then bend down and squeeze the soil and let it sift through the fingers. Already there's a new sense of security. Crazy? Not likely, not yet.
  At the age of forty-nine, after a lifetime of insomnia and midnight peril, the hour has come for seizing control. It isn't madness. It isn't a lapse of common sense. Prudence, that's all it is.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Ollie shrugged. "Sarah, she goes in for the spook stuff. You ask me, it's too James Bond-y, slightly paranoid, but I guess that's her style. Like right now—today—I'm not even supposed to talk to you, just drop messages. Screw it, though. I figure you got to go with the normal flow, otherwise you start... Listen, maybe you better sit down."
  I let him lead me over to a bench in the main lobby. Jet lag, I thought. I closed my eyes and leaned back while he filled me in on his doings since graduation. Most of it I already knew. He explained how the McCarthy business had gone bust after California. Clean-cut candidate, clean-cut defeat. "Tidy Bowl Politics," he said, "it makes you yearn for the pigpen. Crack a few skulls, you know?"
  Ollie was silent for a time. He'd lost some weight, and he seemed taller now, and stronger, and a little more subdued. He wore a buckskin jacket and boots, but no cowboy hat. At the crown of his head, I noticed, there was evidence of aging. After a moment he sighed, snapping his fingers, and talked about life on the campaign trail, mostly the disappointments. "The Windy City," he said, "that was an eye-opener for all of us. Yippies here, Dippies there. Turns out clean-cut isn't trendy. No offense, I do love that haircut."
  He looked at his fingernails. "The chef, remember? I said it before, you got to break some legs. Three years ago. Nobody listened, but I said it."
  Ollie stood up. He unwrapped a stick of Juicy Fruit, folded it twice, placed it on his tongue, and chewed vigorously. "Just pals," he said. "Concerned citizens, you might say."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last three paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Bobbi goes first, up the ladder, I follow behind with the firing device. I turn off the Christmas lights. The sky at this hour is purple going to blue. The mountains are firm and silent. There are morning birds in the trees, and the grass is a pale dusty green, and I love my wife. She leans against me. For some time we stand together in the backyard, and later I lead her into the house and make coffee and sit with her at the kitchen table. There is little to say. I ask how much space she needs; I ask if we could stay together a while longer. Bobbi touches my hand. Her eyes, I notice, don't quite focus. Her voice, when she says anything's possible, comes from elsewhere. She's thinking of other worlds. But she does smile. She lets me love. In her heart, I suppose, there's a lyric forming, but even that doesn't matter.
  Outside, I pick up the firing device and take shelter behind the tool shed. Nuclear war, it's a hoax. A belly laugh in the epic comedy. I flip up the safety catch, crouch low, look at the sky, and put my finger against the yellow button.
  One day my daughter will die. One day, I know, my wife will leave me. It will be autumn, perhaps, and the trees will be in color, and she will kiss me in my sleep and tuck a poem in my pocket, and the world will surely end.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: It will be autumn, perhaps, and the trees will be in color, and she will kiss me in my sleep and tuck a poem in my pocket, and the world will surely end.. One day, I know, my wife will leave me.
  One day my daughter will die. I flip up the safety catch, crouch low, look at the sky, and put my finger against the yellow button. A belly laugh in the epic comedy. Nuclear war, it's a hoax.
  Outside, I pick up the firing device and take shelter behind the tool shed. In her heart, I suppose, there's a lyric forming, but even that doesn't matter. She lets me love. But she does smile. She's thinking of other worlds. Her voice, when she says anything's possible, comes from elsewhere. Her eyes, I notice, don't quite focus. Bobbi touches my hand. I ask how much space she needs; I ask if we could stay together a while longer. There is little to say. For some time we stand together in the backyard, and later I lead her into the house and make coffee and sit with her at the kitchen table. She leans against me. There are morning birds in the trees, and the grass is a pale dusty green, and I love my wife. The mountains are firm and silent. The sky at this hour is purple going to blue. I turn off the Christmas lights.Bobbi goes first, up the ladder, I follow behind with the firing device