"I was trying to describe a veteran of the Vietnam War, and I kept thinking of him as Billy Budd. I wondered, "Is this a correct comparison?" So I read it again today, and I realized that the book is about war. I didn't think about that before; I just thought it was about somebody good who was on a ship. I didn't remember the war. In those days they weren't drafted, they were impressed. The captain in the book even says, "Use the right word for it, it's impressment." Billy Budd is a draftee. And he goes along with it. The story is about mutiny within the military during wartime."