A PULSING ROCK MUSICAL
BATTLE SONGS OF YOUTH
Five boys. Two weeks. More than two hundred years of American war.
Each must decide whether enlistment is duty, escape, opportunity—or a choice he cannot take back.
THE VOICES BEHIND THE SONGS
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL
Five seventeen-year-olds sit down to take the ASVAB, the Army entrance exam. Their reading passages become doors into earlier American wars—and into the fears each boy has kept private.
FORM 23-041
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SERVE?
□ DUTY □ ESCAPE □ FUTURE □ FEAR
MORE THAN 200 YEARS
1775
REVOLUTION
1812
WAR OF 1812
1861
CIVIL WAR
1917
WORLD WAR I
1941
WORLD WAR II
1950
KOREA
1965
VIETNAM
1990–NOW
GULF · AFGHANISTAN · MIDDLE EAST
FIVE VOICES
GEORGE
THE GOLDEN BOY HIDING A SECRET
ABE
THE OVER-ACHIEVER WHO NEEDS A WAY TO COLLEGE
JOHN
THE ARMY BRAT WHO BELIEVES THE STORIES
THOMAS
THE BROTHER AFRAID TO SAY NO
BEN
THE QUIET STUDENT WHO FINDS HIS VOICE
LISTEN & WATCH
GLIDE AWAY
MATT DOYLE
PART OF THE GAME
TOMASSO ANTICO
FIVE FUTURES
Whatever they choose, all five have been changed irrevocably. The decision marks the end of childhood—and the beginning of lives they can no longer imagine in the same way.
DISCUSS SEPARATE →
SEPARATE: BATTLE SONGS OF YOUTH