A re-release of this award-winning, critically acclaimed novel???featuring a new introduction by the author???just in time for its major motion picture release, directed by Academy Award nominated director Ang Lee and featuring Vin Diesel and Steve Martin A ferocious firefight with Iraqi insurgents at ???the battle of Al-Ansakar Canal??? ???three minutes and forty-three seconds of intensive warfare caught on tape by Fox News journalists embedded with their unit???has transformed the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad into America???s most sought after heroes. For the past two weeks, the Bush Administration has sent them on a media-intensive nationwide ???Victory Tour ??? to meet their adoring fans and reinvigorate public support for the war. Now, on this chilly and rainy Thanksgiving that is also the end of the tour, the Bravos are at Texas Stadium. Guests of America???s Team, Dallas Cowboys, they will be part of the Halftime Show alongside the superstar pop group, Destiny???s Child. Among the Bravos is the Silver Star-winning hero of Al-Ansakar, a 19-year-old Texas native and virgin named Specialist William Lynn. On this final day before their redeployment, Billy and the Bravos will meet patriots sporting flag pins on their lapels and ???support our troops??? bumper stickers on their cars. Proud of their troops, proud to be Americans, they include the Cowboy???s hard-nosed businessman/owner and his coterie of wealthy colleagues; a luscious born-again Cowboys cheerleader; a veteran Hollywood producer and supersized pro players eager for a vicarious taste of war. Between their faces he sees those of his family, his worried sisters and broken father and there is Shroom, the philosophical sergeant who opened Billy???s mind and died in his arms at Al- Ansakar.Over the course of this day, Billy will begin to understand difficult truths about himself, his country, his fellow citizens, his struggling family and his brothers in arms???soldiers both dead and alive. In the final few hours before they redeployment, Billy will drink and brawl, yearn for home and mourn those missing and discover pure love and a bitter wisdom far beyond his years. Poignant, wryly amusing and exquisitely heart-breaking, Billy Lynn???s Long Halftime Walk is a devastating portrait of our time, a searing and powerful novel that cements Ben Fountain???s reputation as one of the finest writers of his generation.