Miyamoto Musashi, Japan's Greatest Swordsman, wrote a list of 21 precepts for his favorite student shortly before his own death. In AMERICAN RONIN: THE WAY OF WALKING ALONE, veteran, poet, and "philosopher" Joseph Hall applies these same precepts to the modern experience of those warriors who today, like Musashi in his time, find themselves possessed of military skills and a warrior nature, but are now ronin...masterless samurai outside the military system.