breakfast of champions

here is an excerp from Kurt Vonneguts book Breakfast of Champions.


"Any kids?"
"One," said Trout. Somewhere in the past, tumbling among all the wives and stories
lost in the mails was a son named Leo. "He's a man now," said Trout.

Leo left home forever at the age of fourteen. He lied about his age, and he joined the marines. He sent a note to his father from boot camp. It said this: "I pity you. You've crawled up your own asshole and died."

That was the last time Trout heard from Leo, directly or indirectly, until he was visited by two agents from the Federal Bureal of Investigation. Leo has deserted from his division in Viet Nam, they said. He had commited high treason. He had joined the Viet cong.

Here was the F.B.I. evaluation of Leo's situation on the planet at this time: "Your boy's in bad trouble," they said.